Anxious, Avoidant, or Secure? Why Your Attachment Style Isn't the Whole Story

Are you anxious, avoidant, or secure? Before you answer, let's talk about what attachment theory actually is, where it came from, what it gets right — and why treating it as the final word on who you are can do more harm than good.

What attachment theory is (and isn't)

Attachment theory is based on the psychological and evolutionary forces that shape the bonds we form — with family, friends, romantic partners. Over the past few years, it's broken through into mainstream culture in a big way. TikTok, online quizzes, bestselling books. The premise, as it's usually sold: learn your attachment style, and everything else will finally make sense.

I want to push back on that.

Attachment theory is a useful lens. It can help you understand certain patterns. It can make you feel less alone. But it is not the only lens you need, and using it as one — as the framework that explains who you are and why — is both an oversimplification and, at times, actively counterproductive.

Where it came from

If you only know two names in attachment theory, make it John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

In the early-to-mid 1900s, Bowlby was working at a school for maladjusted children when he encountered two kids who would define his career: one despondent and without a stable mother figure, one so anxious he could barely let Bowlby out of his sight. That pair sparked decades of research into how our early caregivers shape our functioning — and the bonds we form later in life.

Mary Ainsworth joined Bowlby's lab and together they studied children being separated from and reunited with their mothers. Out of that work came three major attachment styles: secure, ambivalent-insecure, and avoidant-insecure.

Follow-up research has supported this foundation. There's meaningful overlap between how secure children feel with their mothers and how secure they feel with romantic partners as adults. The early work is legitimate and useful.

Where it goes wrong

Here's where things get complicated.

#attachmentstyle on TikTok has over 600 million views. The problem isn't that people are curious about themselves — I'm genuinely in favor of mental health concepts becoming more accessible. The problem is that attachment theory has been commodified into something it was never meant to be: a cure-all, a personality type, a fixed identity.

The popular book Attached summarizes the styles this way: secure people are warm and comfortable with intimacy; anxious people crave it and worry they won't get it back; avoidant people equate closeness with losing independence and pull away. Clean categories. Easy to slot yourself into. And almost entirely missing the nuance that makes this actually useful.

The book — and most pop-psychology takes on attachment — presents these as stable, defining characteristics. Some go further and suggest that knowing your style is the key that unlocks all your relationship patterns. What gets lost: how context-dependent our behavior is, how much these patterns shift across relationships and life stages, and the entire rest of what makes you a person.

We simply cannot, do not, and will never fit into three boxes.

The broader problem with psychological labels

Humans categorize everything. It gives structure to a world that resists it. But in psychology, this tendency toward labels and binaries — normal/abnormal, healthy/unhealthy, secure/insecure — has real costs when applied without nuance.

When a framework presents complicated, context-dependent behavior as a fixed type, it cheapens what's actually happening. It lets people off the hook from sitting with the messiness of being human. And sometimes, even well-meaning therapists reach for labels and frameworks because we want to offer a light at the end of the tunnel — when the more honest and useful thing is to sit in the mess with you.

What this means for you

If you're anxious or avoidant in your relationships, that's real information. Attachment theory can help you make sense of some of it. But you are not just anxious or avoidant — and you are not stuck there forever.

You are a nuanced person shaped by a range of factors: your nervous system, your history, your current circumstances, the specific relationship you're in. No single theory, therapist, or framework is going to light the whole way. The most useful thing any of them can do is hand you one piece of the map.

Attachment theory is a good piece. Just not the only one.

If you're in Ohio or Texas and want to actually work through this stuff, I offer free 15-minute consultations. Book here.