Anxious

What this style is

Higher attachment anxiety and lower avoidance. You want closeness and you are comfortable with it, but you often worry about losing it.

A pattern in close relationships marked by a strong need for closeness and reassurance, and worry that a partner will not be available or will leave. In research it is usually described as a dimension (more or less anxious), not an all-or-nothing label.

Where it comes from Bartholomew and Horowitz call this preoccupied: a less certain view of yourself alongside a positive view of others. Ainsworth's anxious-resistant infants are the childhood parallel. They had caregivers who were sometimes available and sometimes not, so they learned to keep the attachment system switched on and stay alert. Attachment researchers call that hyperactivation.

Words to know

Protest behaviour

in attachment theory: excessive texting, keeping score, threats to leave.

Attachment styles

The four attachment styles in plain language: secure, anxious, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant, and why researchers call them dimensions.

Attachment theory

explained plainly: where it came from (Bowlby, Ainsworth), what it says about adult love, and where online use stretches it.

Not sure this is you?

36 statements about how you tend to feel and act in close romantic relationships. Takes about 8 minutes. You get two scores, anxiety and avoidance, and where they place you among the four adult…

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