Within a relationship, seeking connection and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable actually builds intimacy and helps us feel more secure with our partner when it is met with compassion and unconditional love. However, there are some who need a higher level of connection with their partner in order to feel secure. Those with an “Anxious-Preoccupied” attachment style can sometimes be viewed as “needy” or “clingy”. Attachment is a term used to describe how we relate to others. Our style of attachment develops very early on in our childhood and tend to remain constant throughout our lives, although our styles can sometimes change in response to the attachment style our chosen partner may have. People with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style tend to be highly sensitive to subtle changes in behavior and patterns within a relationship. These individuals seek high levels of connection and feel rejected if those needs are not met. A lot of time is spent attending to the needs of the relationship, where validation from their partner can become their highest priority. If these needs are not met, anxiety rises and feelings of doubt regarding the longevity of the relationship begins to set in.
So how does someone develop an anxious-preoccupied attachment style? As children, these individuals had parents who were generally inconsistent in attending to their emotional needs. Their parents vacillated between overindulgence when providing attention to their children to a lack of attunement to their child’s needs. As a result, the child learns to be highly sensitive to the moods of that parent in order to get their needs met. This child becomes an adult with a heightened sense of recognizing subtle changes in behavior or mood in the people around them.
Within any healthy adult relationship, change is a normal part of its progression. Shifts in routine and behavior can occur as a couple becomes more comfortable with each other. These subtle changes can be alarming to someone with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style. Because of their high level of attunement, studies indicate that anxious-preoccupied individuals are more accurate in detecting the emotional changes of their partners. They may sacrifice their own needs in order to maintain the attention and interest of their partner. They may be viewed as needy by others due to their frequent need for reassurance or validation.
In response to these shifts they may try to increase connection with their partner, whether it be positive or negative. When they feel the relationship is being threatened in some way, a more hostile response would be expected. Some examples of these behaviors would include: excessive phone calls or text messages, keeping tabs of how long it takes his or her partner to return a message, attempts at making their partner jealous, ignoring their partner or even threatening to end the relationship. These behaviors, although negative, are meant to draw their partner in, whether they are consciously aware of these motives or not. The partner may make attempts to reconnect with the anxious-preoccupied individual who has threatened to end the relationship. This attempt to reconnect is viewed as a sign of caring, despite the dysfunctional attempts to obtain this reassurance.
Dr. Daniel Siegel, professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, reports that mindfulness can help heal this insecure attachment. “The regular exercise of mindful awareness seems to promote the same benefits- bodily and affective self-regulation, attuned communication with others, insight, empathy, and the like- that research has found to be associated with childhood histories of secure attachment. Mindfulness and secure attachment alike are capable of generating… the same invaluable psychological resource: an internalized secure base,” writes Siegel.
Research shows that developing an earned secure attachment is possible through this increased awareness. An earned secure attachment refers to being able to acknowledge dysfunctional experiences as a child, but how one makes sense of these experiences determines whether an earned secure attachment can develop. Working with a skilled therapist can help you make sense of your relational experiences and from that point you can begin developing a new and healthier way of connecting with others.