Why we keep reacting the same way

You may recognise this. Someone gets close, and you take a step back before you have decided anything. Or the other way round: a relationship starts to matter, the worry grows that the other person might leave, and you hold on tighter than you would like. Reactions like these feel like a character trait, like something you simply are. They are closer to a learned way of handling closeness, and they have a history.

What attachment actually means

Attachment describes an old and fairly simple system in us. When we feel threatened or overwhelmed, we seek the closeness of someone familiar. That person serves two functions, and it is worth keeping them apart.

They are the solid ground we venture out from in the first place. And they are the harbour we return to when things get hard.¹ Together those two make up what security in a relationship means: being able to go out, and being allowed to come back.

Out of many early experiences of whether someone was there, and how they responded, an inner picture forms of what to expect in relationships.² That picture keeps running quietly in the background. It shapes how you read a new relationship long before you have had time to test it.

Four patterns, and none of them rare

These patterns were first made visible in small children, in an observation setting with brief separations from the caregiver. What told you most was the reunion. Four forms showed up.³

One child lets itself be comforted and turns back to play. Another turns away and shows almost no visible distress. A third seeks closeness and still cannot settle. And in a fourth, seeking and avoiding mix contradictorily, and it freezes mid-movement.

The distribution is the real point. In the largest review of such observations so far, only about half the children showed a secure pattern.⁴ Just under half did not. If you recognise yourself in one of the insecure patterns, you belong to the majority without a secure one, not to an exception.

It is not a weakness and not your fault

Where a pattern comes from has little to do with your own temperament. Attachment becomes secure mainly where a caregiver notices what is going on inside the child and responds to it.⁵ Where that was possible less often, a different strategy formed instead.

That is exactly the point. A pattern built on withdrawal, or on holding on, is a sensible adaptation to what was needed back then. Someone who learned early that asking gets you nowhere stops asking. That was right at the time. That it sometimes gets in the way today does not make it wrong.

In adults: two directions rather than four boxes

In adulthood, attachment is captured differently, through two questions answered independently of one another.⁶ Let me take them one at a time.

The first question is about worry. How much does the thought occupy you that you might be left, or that you matter less than you hoped? Someone high here reads a curt message as withdrawal and then needs reassurance before settling again.

The second question is about withdrawal. How uncomfortable is too much closeness and dependence for you? Someone high here would rather handle things alone, plays down their own distress, and needs distance after an intense conversation.

Here is what matters: these two are not the opposite ends of one scale. You can be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other.⁶ That combination produces four regions, and research has names for them.⁷

An example makes it concrete. Two people get the same terse message: "Tonight will not work, I will be in touch tomorrow." One of them is high on worry and low on withdrawal. She writes three follow-ups, because the unease only lifts once an answer arrives.

The other is low on worry and high on withdrawal. He notes the message, thinks "fine", and realises two days later that something about it did stay with him. Both responses are coherent, they simply come from different directions.

One more thing belongs here. Someone high on both wants closeness and fears it at the same time. That is the most uncomfortable place to sit, because both movements pull at once.

Where you stand right now

You do not need a test for this. It is enough to ask yourself the two questions separately and answer honestly, without filing yourself away straight afterwards.

Think of an important relationship in your life, a past one will do. Then ask yourself, on the first direction: how often do I wonder whether the other person is still there, whether I was too much, whether something is about to tip? And on the second: how quickly does it get too close when someone wants more, and how hard is it for me to ask for help?

If the answer to both is "rarely", you sit in the secure region. If one of the questions produces a clear yes, you know your direction. If both do, you now know why closeness so often feels like it pulls two ways at once.

What you do with it is the only part that matters. This is not a diagnosis and not a category you now belong to. It is a position on two scales, and positions shift.

What helps, depending on your direction

This matters practically, because the two directions handle support differently. People with more worry are more likely to seek help and to engage more strongly. People with more withdrawal are more likely to turn support down and to use it less.⁸

For work with people whose withdrawal runs strong, the evidence points to what holds: accept the distance first and offer reliability, rather than pushing for emotional access.⁹ No pressure, then, but someone who stays and leaves the pace to you. Where worry runs strong it is the other way round, more about dependable, clearly structured availability that gives security without deepening dependence.⁹

What does that mean for you on your own? If your withdrawal is strong, here is an invitation: read your withdrawal for what it originally was, an old protective move. Then see whether there is one small thing you might name out loud, something you would normally handle alone.

If your worry is strong, the invitation runs differently: tell the other person what you need, instead of waiting for them to guess. Whether that does anything for you, you will only find out by trying. I cannot promise it.

Patterns do change

The most important part comes last. Your inner picture of relationships is not set in stone. It came out of experience, and it changes through experience.¹⁰ A relationship that stays reliable and behaves differently from what you expect slowly rewrites the old picture. That can be a friendship, a partnership, or a course of support where you get to try exactly that.

A small first step, concretely. Take a week and watch what you do when someone gets close, or when you could actually use help. "Observe without judgement" sounds abstract, so let me put it plainly: in the evening you write down two sentences. The first describes the situation ("She asked how I was doing"). The second describes what you did ("I said I was fine and changed the subject").

No third sentence. No "there I go again", no "I have to fix that". Leaving that out is the part without judgement. After a week you read the notes in one go. Most people see their own direction then, without anyone having to name it for them.

If you like, we can look at your pattern together in a quiet first conversation, without pressure and at your pace. I am Karin Gutenbrunner Byom, systemic-integral counsellor and coach. I take my time, and I listen first.

Sources

1. Levy, K. N., Kivity, Y., Johnson, B. N., & Gooch, C. V. (2018). Adult attachment as a predictor and moderator of psychotherapy outcome: A meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(11), 1996-2013.
2. Simpson, J. A. (2026). Internal working models of attachment: A lifespan perspective. In The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships (pp. 263-284). Cambridge University Press. Additionally: Groh, A. M., et al. (2017). Child Development Perspectives, 11(1), 70-76.
3. Carlson, E. A. (1998). A prospective longitudinal study of attachment disorganization/disorientation. Child Development, 69(4), 1107-1128.
4. Madigan, S., et al. (2023). The first 20,000 strange situation procedures: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 149(1-2), 99-132.
5. Zeegers, M. A. J., Colonnesi, C., Stams, G.-J. J. M., & Meins, E. (2017). Mind matters: A meta-analysis on parental mentalization and sensitivity as predictors of infant-parent attachment. Psychological Bulletin, 143(12), 1245-1272. Additionally: Groh et al. (2017), Child Development Perspectives, 11(1), 70-76.
6. Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G., & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 350-365. Additionally: Levy et al. (2018), p. 1999.
7. Adams, G. C., Wrath, A. J., & Meng, X. (2018). The relationship between adult attachment and mental health care utilization: A systematic review. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 63(10), 651-660.
8. Adams, G. C., Wrath, A. J., & Meng, X. (2018), ibid. The link is clear for treatment engagement and less conclusive for dropout.
9. Berry, K., & Danquah, A. (2016). Attachment-informed therapy for adults: Towards a unifying perspective on practice. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 89(1), 15-32.
10. Simpson, J. A. (2026), ibid. Additionally: Berry & Danquah (2016).