Secure attachment is built, not found
You might be hearing a lot about attachment styles and relationships. Many people start dating someone new and believe that secure attachment is something they’ll achieve after finally meeting “the right person.” But it’s important to understand that attachment styles start in early childhood experiences. In healthy, attuned households, children are seen, heard, and understood. They have present, consistent, kind caretakers in their lives who don’t diminish, criticise, or dismiss their range of emotions. When all of these needs are safely and continuously met, the result is attachment security. This is what most people aspire to in their relationships with themselves and others.
It sounds like a great childhood, right? Growing up with this level of security is actually quite rare. Indeed, secure attachment in childhood means you hit the jackpot with a solid foundation, and it’s the “gold standard” to which all other attachment styles — anxious, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant/disorganised — are measured.
As a result, you'll be more likely to develop healthy, securely attached relationships through the teen years and into adulthood. But attachment styles are not fixed; everyone’s relational experiences are different, and how we relate to others and what we’re triggered by constantly shifts. Even those with a secure attachment style can feel anxious, avoidant or confused in relationships. Just because you were raised with attuned, caring role models doesn’t mean you won’t get activated or less secure with certain people.
But what if you weren’t so lucky to be raised in a secure household? That doesn’t mean you can’t build a secure attachment style, as attachment is fluid. With self-awareness, healing, and healthy relational experiences, you can work to develop relational security later in life. This is referred to as “earned secure attachment,” as it’s intentionally built, not found.
Earned secure attachment isn’t achieved by chemistry, connection, attraction, or intensity. It’s built slowly over time through repeated relational experiences of safety, consistency, vulnerability, emotional repair, and trust.
For many people with anxious, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant/disorganised attachment styles, relationships are where their attachment wounds become visible.
But through this lens, healing can also begin.
What is attachment theory?
Attachment theory is a psychological framework developed by British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby and later expanded by psychologist Mary Ainsworth. It examines the emotional bonds and relationships between people.
Attachment styles in romantic relationships became popularised with the research of Amir Levine, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University, who partnered with psychologist Rachel Heller in 2010 to write the book “Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find–and Keep–Love.”
The theory focuses on the early attachment patterns formed in childhood and how they influence trust, communication, intimacy, and behaviour in later adult romantic and personal relationships. The quality of these early bonds can affect how people relate to others, including how secure, anxious, or avoidant they are in close relationships.
At its core, attachment theory asks a very simple question:
When I am distressed, vulnerable, overwhelmed, or emotionally activated, what happens when I reach for connection?
The four main attachment styles
Secure attachment
Securely attached people often feel comfortable and at ease in relationships. They are good at communicating their needs and feelings, open to vulnerability, and know how to regulate themselves. However, even those with secure attachment can sometimes experience difficulty relating to those who aren’t as secure in relationships.
Anxious attachment
Anxiously attached people can often feel anxious, unsafe or insecure in relationships because they have a subconscious fear of abandonment. As a result, those with anxious attachment seek out closeness and proximity in relationships, and can feel afraid if they sense emotional distance, rejection, changes in communication or disconnection.
Dismissive avoidant attachment
Dismissive avoidants struggle to express their emotional needs, can feel overwhelmed by intense emotions and often pull away from others. They would rather withdraw from arguments or anything triggering than remain present during conflict. Vulnerability feels very uncomfortable and even unsafe. As a result, those with dismissive-avoidant traits are usually highly independent, which can create challenges in relationships and in forming intimate connections with others.
Fearful-avoidant / Disorganised attachment
Those with a disorganised or fearful-avoidant attachment style often experience the most internal conflict as they swing between being anxious and being avoidant. Their relationships can feel chaotic, confusing, and overwhelming, as they can easily shift between being "hot and cold," often feeling confused about their own feelings as they yearn for intimacy, closeness, and connection while simultaneously fearing it.
How secure attachment is built in relationships
A relationship is considered “secure” when each partner feels that their basic attachment needs are being met. When secure couples have a rupture and attachment needs are unmet, they have the skills to make a quick repair.
What do people require for relationship safety?
to feel appreciated
to feel that your needs, wants, thoughts and feelings matter to your partner
to feel accepted for who you are
to trust you won’t be abandoned physically or emotionally
to know your partner will be there for you when it really matters
to know your partner trusts your love and loyalty
to feel wanted and desired by your partner
Being in a close, secure relationship with a trusted person, such as a partner, therapist, family member, or friend, can help you learn and grow into a secure attachment style.
A secure person in your life will respond to you with emotional validation and support, and help you feel heard and connected. They will have healthy boundaries, be authentic and capable of vulnerability. They will not try to control you. They will appreciate you for who you are while also encouraging you to grow.
One of the most important things securely attached people provide is co-regulation.
Self-regulation stems from co-regulation. If you didn't get enough of it as a child, having a co-regulating person in your life now can help you learn to self-regulate. As an adult, you can still learn to self-regulate on your own, but it's much easier with a supportive person in your life.
Building secure attachment takes conscious work
Through regular, meaningful and conscious interactions with securely attached people, you can become secure, too. This is an earned secure attachment. As you become more secure, your defences will go down, your shame will lessen, and your energy will be freed up for healthy self-reflection and growth.
This is because people with secure attachment help you feel safe and can provide you with an adult version of the secure relational experience you probably didn't have as a child.
What does this look like relationally?
learning and consistently practising healthier communication
practising and enforcing boundaries
openness to emotional intimacy and vulnerability
remaining present during discomfort and conflict
choosing emotionally safe relationships instead of emotionally chaotic ones
You may still become triggered, anxious, avoidant, or emotionally reactive at times. This is hard work. But with consistency, you’ll find a growing ability to remain connected to yourself and others without constantly living in fear.
How The Place Retreats Bali can help
Many people spend years searching for someone who will “fix” them and finally make them feel secure.
But secure attachment is not something magically found in another person — it’s built.
While healthy relationships can help build attachment security, the process always begins with understanding yourself.
At The Place Retreats in Bali, we offer award-winning luxury wellness retreats to help clients do exactly that.
Our Balinese tropical sanctuary is designed to help clients focus on themselves through holistic therapies, movement practices, and mindfulness techniques.
Through individualised therapy sessions (including EMDR, CBT, and DBT), Kundalini yoga, meditation, and deep tissue matrix healing, our expert team offers a personalised approach to every attachment style.
We understand that nervous system regulation is a lifelong skill that will help you work towards secure attachment and happier, healthier relationships.
Contact us today to learn how our tailor-made retreats can help you.
