Attachment Styles: What are They, and How Do We Heal?

The way we form attachments is one of the most enlightening topics we can explore in therapy. If unexplored, our bad habits can run rampant and leave us disconnected from the relationships that matter the most to us. 

But with the newfound awareness we often come to in counseling, we can break free of our old patterns and connect to others like never before. When we let go of the baggage we carry from our past, we can create meaningful relationships based on authenticity and mutual understanding. But how?

“To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear.” – Stephen Levine.

What Is Attachment Style, And How Does It Impact Us?

Attachment style is a psychological framework that describes the different ways we experience our connection to others. This framework can be useful when it comes to analyzing and improving our bids for connection with others, but it has its own set of biases and limitations. 

It can be challenging to uncouple this framework from the mostly white, mostly male psychological establishment that birthed it. With each of these title labels, diagnoses, and presumed root causes, there are value judgments being made whether it’s intentional or not. 

• Anxious Attachment Style. If you are a chronic seeker of validation, then you may identify with the anxious attachment style. Anxious attachment is characterized by a fear of abandonment, and a dependence on others for our sense of self-worth.  
• Avoidant Attachment Style. If you are intimacy or vulnerability avoidant, then you may identify with the avoidant-dismissive attachment style. Avoidant attachment is defined by its want for emotional distance and independence.
• Disorganized Attachment Style. If your style of attachment is a mix between the anxious and avoidant modes of attachment, then you may identify with the disorganized (or avoidant-fearful) attachment style. Disorganized attachment presents itself as a blend of the other attachment style characteristics, and most people who go to therapy fall into this category.
• Secure Attachment Style. If your attachments are a consistent source of stability and strength in your life, then why are you reading this article? All jokes aside, secure attachment is often presented as the treated goal when it comes to exploring attachment style, but these things are far more complicated than a simple binary between secure and insecure attachment. The goal, as always, is improvement, and that doesn’t mean you have to get it perfect. It just means trying to do it better than you did it yesterday. 

Is Attachment Therapy Covered By Cigna?

Attachment theory generally falls under the purview of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT), and is covered by most health insurances. But finding a therapist who is covered by your insurance specifically is often more of a headache than it should be. 

That’s why Integrative Counsel is open and transparent about which insurances our counselors accept! If you are looking for…

• Counselors Who Accept Aetna Insurance. There’s no reason that it should be so difficult to find a therapist who accepts your Aetna insurance. Wherever you are on your journey, we have a right-fit counselor who’s got you covered (and is covered by your insurance!)
• Counseling For People With United Insurance. Finding counseling that fits in your lifestyle can be quite the journey, but Integrative Counsel is here to help you at every step of the way. If you’re covered by Optum, whether it’s United Optum Oscar, Optum Oxford, we can match you with a right-fit counselor who is covered by your plan.
• Therapists Who Accept Cigna Insurance. If you have health insurance from Cigna, you’re in the right place! Our therapists are covered by your insurance, and here to offer you guidance as you navigate your own personal relationship with attachment.

How Can Therapy Heal An Anxious Attachment Style? 

• The Right Therapist Can Teach You How To Set Boundaries. When we’re acting from a place of insecurity or anxiety, it can be hard to set boundaries, even when we really want to. The right therapist can give you the tools to set boundaries in a way that is accessible, healthy, and sustainable.
• In Therapy, We Can Learn Self Care From An Expert. One of the most harmful patterns when it comes to validation seeking is that the behavior is often used as a substitute for genuine self-care. On the bright side, this means that if you work with your therapist to develop your skills of self-care, then you can also put down some of the anxiety that’s been burdening your shoulders for who knows how long. Pouring into your own cup allows it to flow in excess so you can give to others without hurting yourself.
• A Therapist Can Teach You How To Ease Your Anxiety. At a certain point, anxiety is an unavoidable fact of life. We could give ourselves every accommodation in the world and still have to sometimes face the reality of anxiety. The right therapist can give you the tools to calm your anxiety when it rears its head.

Can Counseling Help With An Avoidant Attachment Style? 

• Counseling Can Help You Reach The Destination Of Self-Love. Often, those who identify with the avoidant attachment style are also those who struggle with self-worth. It makes a certain sense that someone who didn’t think they were deserving of affection would push that affection away however they could. This is really hard for anyone who struggles with intimacy avoidance, but it has a fortunate consequence: when we work on our skills of self-love, it also makes it easier to connect with others.
• The Right Counselor Can Teach Us How To Better Support Others. One of the most painful experiences for those who avoid attachment is that they don’t support their loved ones the way they might want to. Working with a counselor can give you a toolkit to grow your closeness with others and offer them support when they need it.
• Counseling Can Help You Understand Intimacy Avoidance. Whether intimacy avoidance affects you or someone close to you, counseling can help you better empathize with your loved ones and give them support that’s suited to them. We can only control our own actions, but we can still do what we can to make our relationships supportive and harmonious.

What Does Therapy Have To Offer People With A Disorganized Attachment Style?

• With Therapy, We Can Heal Our Family Stories. Often our relationship strategies were picked up from our caregivers in childhood. This is not our fault. We were doing the best we could with the information we had. Working with a therapist can help you take a closer look at your family story, and retell the narratives that are no longer serving you.
• The Right Therapist Can Help You Untangle Your Generational Trauma. Those old family stories are actually even older than you might think. Human beings actually carry with them traumas that were inflicted on ancestors they might not remember the names of. The right therapist can help you sort through the tangled web of trauma that exists in all of our family trees. You can also dump your thoughts into your journal and re-read it out loud to begin to make sense of your experience.
• Therapy Can Help You Heal The Emotional Pain Living In Your Body. So if we’re carrying the trauma of our parents, grandparents, and great-great-great-grandparents we don’t remember the names of in our bodies, that’s going to take a toll. When we’re carrying trauma in our bodies, we’ll inevitably carry that trauma forward in our thoughts and behavior. Yoga helps you move through the stuck energy that lives in your body. Therapy also offers us unique relief when it comes to working through the trauma that lives in our bodies by creating a map for your nervous system so that you are able to regulate when triggered.

St. Petersburg Counselors Who Can Help You Develop Secure Attachments

You are not at fault for having a “disorganized” attachment style, and it doesn’t make you a bad person for struggling with it, but you are the one responsible for maintaining your relationships with others. Connection is an art, but even artists need a source to learn from!

Our team is qualified and committed to guide you in your journey to a better life. No matter how far along (or barely even begun) your journey is, we have an expert who would love to help you along your way.

• Quinn Smalley, LMHC, ATR , Is A Counselor For Life Transitions. Quinn Smalley is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who helps her patients adjust to new situations, like leaving home for college, the end of a serious relationship, or the start of a new career. Quinn Smalley combines CBT and Art Therapy to help her clients let go of their attachments and appreciate the present moment for what it is instead of resenting it for what it is not.
• Michael Anthony, LCSW, Is A Counselor For Relationships. Michael Anthony helps his clients navigate relationship issues, toxic masculinity, and the search for inner peace. Michael is a somatic and mindfulness-based counselor who incorporates the teachings from Martial Arts in his sessions.
• Lauren Mishkin, LMHC, Is A Trauma Counselor. Lauren Mishkin is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who helps her patients with processing their past through their bodies, healing from trauma, and finding renewed hope in the future by accessing your body-informed wisdom. Lauren helps her clients let go of their attachments to the past, and form newer, healthier ones. 
• Alli Cravener, Counseling Intern, Helps You Unlock Your Creativity. Alli Cravener is a therapy intern  in St. Petersburg who helps her clients find their identity and explore their inner child through art therapy, finding freedom from self-imposed limitations and fears. 

 If you feel stuck on your healing journey, working with a therapist can help. Based on your needs, our intake specialist will help you get matched up with your perfect therapist. Click here to schedule a consultation.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.