The document discusses how attachment styles from childhood can impact intimate relationships. People with anxious-preoccupied attachment styles often feel emotional hunger and seek to be rescued by their partners. They may push partners away despite wanting safety and security. Those with anxious/ambivalent styles experienced unpredictable caregiving as children and display distress when separated from caregivers that is not relieved by their return. As adults, they may worry about a partner's love and feelings, seek closeness but have mixed emotions in relationships. Their nervousness and insecurity in relationships can lead to clinginess, dependence on others for validation, and becoming possessive when unsure of a partner's feelings.
2. Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment Style
◦ Desperate to form a fantasy bond.
◦ Instead of feeling real love or trust toward their partner, they often feel emotional hunger.
◦ Frequently looking to their partner to rescue or complete them.
◦ Although they’re seeking a sense of safety and security by clinging to their partner, they take actions that
push their partner away.
3. Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment Style
◦ Anxious because they can never predict when and how their care givers will respond to their needs
◦ These children display considerable distress when separated from a parent or caregiver
◦ but do not seem reassured or comforted by the return of the parent.
◦ May be wary of strangers
◦ Become greatly distressed when parents leave
◦ Do not appear comforted when parents return
4. How Attachment Style Impacts Relationship
Ainsworth’s Attachment Theory
As adults those with Ambivalent Attachment Style often :-
◦ Worry that their partner does not love them
◦ Worry that their partner does not reciprocate their
feelings.
◦ Seek closeness to others
◦ But, experience mixed, conflicting feelings even
when they are in loving relationship.
◦ Clingy and over-dependent.
Bartholomew’s Attachment Styles
Those with Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment Styles
◦ Inclined to feel more nervous and less secure
about relationships in general, and romantic
relationships in particular
◦ Concerned with what others feel about them.
◦ Dependent on others for feelings of validation and
approval
◦ Want excessive intimacy and are often overly
involved and clingy when it comes to relationship
◦ When they feel unsure of their partner’s feelings
and unsafe in their relationship, they often become
clingy, demanding or possessive toward their
partner.
