Avoidant attachment style refers to a kind of thinking and behaving in relationships. It’s a type of insecure attachment that is characterized by an avoidance of feelings, emotional closeness, and intimacy. Avoidant attachment, like other attachment styles, forms in infancy and early childhood and extends into adulthood. With treatment, it can be transformed into a more secure attachment style.
What Is Attachment?
Attachment refers to the bond that forms between a baby and their primary caregiver. It’s an interplay of communication and responses that fosters physical and emotional closeness, provides a secure base (a sense of security and trust that no matter what happens, the caregiver will be there for support), and establishes a safe haven of comfort to soothe the baby in times of distress.1 What infants learn from their caregivers shapes their worldview and significantly impacts how they interact with others to meet their needs in all future relationships.1,2,3
What Is Avoidant Attachment?
Avoidant attachment style is one type of insecure attachment. Insecure attachment—including avoidant, anxious, and disorganized attachment as well as reactive attachment disorder—is in contrast to secure attachment, a healthy, strong emotional bond that leads to feelings of empathy, trust, and self-worth.1
Avoidant attachment is underscored by the belief that others aren’t reliable, trustworthy, or caring. An infant quickly learns that they must meet their own needs because their caregiver can’t be counted on – a form of attachment trauma. Therefore, avoidant attachment is a self-protective measure involving behaviors that allow the person to meet their own needs without connecting with others.
In all stages of life, people have requirements beyond survival. We need warmth, empathy, affection, and love. A baby who isn’t treated with warmth and compassion—who isn’t soothed when stressed, cuddled, or played with—learns that they aren’t worthy of this positive human connection. This is distressing, so to protect themselves, they disconnect from their needs, desires, and feelings. In other words, they avoid feeling and expressing emotion and come to rely solely on their own internal resources.
Avoidant attachment in infancy and childhood has life-long mental health implications. Its heightened sense of independence and self-reliance can lead someone to have fewer relationships and/or relationships that lack emotional closeness.4 It also contributes to a diminished sense of self-worth. Further, studies have found that avoidant attachment is a risk factor for social anxiety and depression.4
Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment Style In Adults
Avoidant attachment, like all attachment styles, carries into adulthood. The quality of relationships in the early months and years of life, especially the relationship with a primary caregiver, are the foundation of all future relationships and interactions.1 Avoidant attachment in children is often called dismissive or dismissive-avoidant attachment in adults.5
Adults who have a dismissive attachment style typically desire intimacy and closeness, but their lack of trust and belief that others don’t understand or care about their needs and wishes creates a fear of intimacy.3 Having learned from infancy that their caregivers were disinterested or uncaring, dismissive adults have a critical inner voice and feelings of unworthiness and emptiness that influence how they relate to others.5
Adults with the dismissive-avoidant attachment style often have difficulty forming true connections with others, whether romantic partners, friends, coworkers, or acquaintances. Their need for independence and personal freedom (neither relying on others nor allowing others to rely on them) is typically more important than emotional and physical closeness because of their belief that showing feelings leaves them vulnerable to hurt and rejection.2,3
Because these adults actively avoid emotional connections, dismiss emotions (their own and others’), and are uncomfortable with physical touch, other people tend to accuse them of being distant and rigid. In response, dismissively attached adults describe others as too needy or clingy.3
If you think you might identify with avoidant-dismissive attachment, Elizabeth Bonet, PhD, LMHC shares these signs to watch for: 9
- Not wanting to talk about things that are bothering you or that your partner brings up.
- Finding that you are using activities to avoid being with or engaging with your partner.
- Notice how you speak . . . do you have long pauses or drift off a lot during a conversation with your partner? Or space out a lot during the conversation?
- Either you’re a serial cheater and find you can’t be with just one person or have a hard time being in a relationship at all.
- You have no idea what your feelings are. People who have avoidant attachment styles often avoid feeling their own feelings as a way to disconnect from both themselves and others.
Signs of Avoidant Attachment
Because the internal experience of avoidant attachment style influences behavior and interactions, there are outward signs of avoidant attachment that can be observed by others. These include altered emotional displays, avoiding eye contact and physical touch, and being hyper focused on personal goals.
Looks for these signs of avoidant attachment in children, adolescents, or adults:1,2,5
- Lacking positive emotional displays when a caregiver returns after being out of sight; ignoring the adult and focusing on something else, such as a toy
- Doing most tasks for themselves and showing a reluctance to ask for help even when having difficulty with something (often called “pseudo-independence” in children and teens)
- Preferring to spend time by themselves
- Avoiding eye contact
- Shunning physical touch
- Becoming annoyed when others express desires or feelings
- Tuning out during emotional or other uncomfortable conversations
- Accusing others of being needy and then withdrawing
- Appearing self-centered or selfish, focusing on themselves and their own priorities
- Displaying overconfidence coupled with a negative view of others (usually as a defense mechanism to protect themselves and deny a low sense of self-worth)
- Hyperfocusing on work or other goals to avoid feelings of emptiness
What Causes Avoidant Attachment Style?
Attachment patterns stem largely from parenting practices.1,2,3,5 In the case of avoidant attachment, when a child’s caregiver doesn’t respond swiftly and consistently to their cries and coos, or interacts minimally and without warmth and empathy, the child continually feels unsafe, unseen, and unsoothed.2 They learn that they can’t rely on the person caring for them and that they must instead meet their own needs.
Children also learn that outwardly expressing emotion doesn’t elicit a caring response but instead is met with disapproval and/or rejection; therefore, they begin to keep their needs and feelings to themselves. As they grow, they develop a sense of shame and unworthiness of love and affection, and they learn to avoid emotional expression, suppress their desires, and take care of their own needs.1,4
Parenting behaviors that contribute to avoidant attachment include:1,2,3,5
- Not responding promptly or consistently to their infant’s cries
- Avoiding holding their baby and other physical contact as the child grows
- Showing little warmth and affection
- Not engaging in play
- Showing irritation, disdain, or mockery when their child gets hurt or needs attention
- Discouraging crying or other emotional expression
- Remaining distant and aloof
- Consistently being unavailable or distracted, tending to other things rather than listening to or interacting with their child
- Requiring a level of independence beyond what is developmentally appropriate
It’s important to note that, while these behaviors are sometimes deliberate and constitute abuse or neglect, this isn’t always the case. Many parents genuinely want to do what is best for their child and are doing the best they can. Their own parents may have been distant and unempathetic, or they may be battling mental health issues like depression that interfere with their ability to meet their child’s emotional needs.5
Not every child who is raised by parents with the above behaviors develops a dismissive-avoidant pattern. Other factors beyond parenting practices can contribute to this style. Some studies have suggested that infant temperament, a baby’s unique set of behavioral and emotional characteristics, plays a role.1 Some babies are less responsive to their parent’s attention and slower to soothe than others. This can affect the way a parent cares for them. As an extension of infant temperament, personality traits can encourage avoidant behavior, too; further, life experiences, such as traumatic events, also play a part.3
Can Avoidant Attachment Be Prevented?
Because attachment patterns are active responses to the world, avoidant attachment can be prevented. Support and education for parents to help them establish and maintain a nurturing relationship can help them respond to their babies and children in a way that fosters secure attachment.1 Even if a baby or child has already begun to develop avoidant attachment, changing the way care is provided can shift attachment patterns.
Treatment for Avoidant Attachment Disorder
Avoidant attachment can be treated at any point in life, and it’s never too late for someone to develop a more secure style. Treatment differs according to age and state of development. Attachment theory researchers use the term “earned secure attachment” to refer to a healthy pattern of relating to self and others that develops with treatment, patience, and practice.
Treatment for a Child
Treating avoidant attachment in children is usually twofold. Some of the treatment is directed to the parents in the form of education and support.6 Family therapy can be useful as well to help family members improve communication skills and develop healthy, positive ways of relating to and interacting with each other. Frequently, therapists or other professionals visit a child’s home to observe family interaction and provide feedback.7
Individual work with a child who has avoidant attachment can be useful in helping them develop a sense of self-worth, trust in others, and ability to show emotions and express empathy. Play therapists or therapists who incorporate play into their work with kids are recommended to help kids work through attachment difficulties.7 Through work with puppets, doll houses, art therapy (like drawing or clay), and storytelling, therapists can help children overcome the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of avoidant attachment.
Therapy provides a warm, safe environment for children. The therapist models and fosters trust, empathy, non-judgment, and acceptance so kids begin to feel safe exploring their emotions and trying new behaviors.7 This concept holds true for adults as well, but the therapeutic approach is much different.
Therapy for Adults With Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment
Research supports the use of therapy for dismissive-avoidant attachment.1,2,3 Working with a therapist, especially one who specializes in attachment issues, can help you explore and make sense of your past experiences.3 This, in turn, will help you determine what might be holding you back from satisfying relationships and interactions, identify changes you want to make, and determine steps to make them happen.3
Bonet encourages, “Therapy models a secure, healthy relationship and gives you room to practice healthier patterns. It can help you figure out your feelings and what to do with them. It can also help you learn skills to reduce anxiety around communicating about things that are important to you in a relationship and help you practice doing that in a safe way.”
In one study, 31 people living with panic disorder and avoidant or anxious attachment participated in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Changes were measured after each session and showed that participants improved anxiety, avoidance behaviors, and emotional regulation.8
Types of therapy effective for treating dismissive-avoidant attachment in adults include:2,3
Forming a More Secure Attachment Style
Everyone is capable of growing and changing throughout life, and regardless of your age or stage of life, it is never too late to form a more secure attachment style. Changing deep-seated ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving can be challenging and require patience, practice, and support.
Keep in mind that an avoidant attachment style isn’t a character flaw. It’s a self-protective response to difficulty that served a positive purpose early in your life. Because your communication and emotions may have been rejected when you were young, you might have developed a harsh inner critic that still tries to protect you by causing you to deny your emotions and avoid close relationships. Thus, it’s important to examine these underlying beliefs in adulthood.
In addition to working with a therapist, it can be helpful to find a mentor (a teacher, boss, romantic partner, friend, or support group) to support you in this journey. Just as a mental health professional does in therapy sessions, a mentor will act as a secure base and support you, providing non-judgmental feedback as you overcome unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaving.
Remember, too, to treat yourself with the empathy and compassion you deserve. You might consider using positive affirmations as you shift to a more secure attachment style. Writing brief, positive statements about yourself and reading them (aloud if possible) multiple times a day can help you counter and eventually replace your harsh inner critic. Be emotionally available and gentle to yourself now to make up for the warmth you may have lacked as a baby and child.
Final Thoughts on Avoidant Attachment
If dismissive-avoidant attachment is interfering in your life and relationships, working with a therapist can help you achieve secure attachment. Therapists act as the secure base that parents were not, listening attentively and nonjudgmentally as you explore your past and present experiences.6 You can shift your thoughts and feelings about yourself and others and behave in ways that help you meet your life and relationship goals.
