Secure Attachment: Definition, Examples, & Theory

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Secure attachment is trusting that you can rely on the relationships in your life to meet your needs. Let’s look at how secure attachment can be developed – at any age.​
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I was a shy and insecure kid growing up. I hid behind my parents’ knees when we met new people, typically preferred to play by myself, and would ask my parents often if they loved me. When I grew up, my shyness changed. Instead of fearing new people, I might avoid people altogether when I was stressed out, or even when I felt good. There was something that was just too much, or felt too risky, about being close to other people.​
When I learned about attachment styles as a graduate student, I quickly assumed that I was a securely attached person. It took time and therapy for me to see through my denial and to recognize that my behaviors were often not those that securely attached people do. It took a lot of healing, through therapy and new, deeper relationships, for me to develop more of the traits of secure attachment. And just what is secure attachment? What does it look like? How do we become more securely attached? I’ll try to answer all those questions in this article.​
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What Is Secure Attachment? (A Definition)​

Secure attachment is a way of existing in the world and relating to other people (Bowlby, 1979). It is a way of interacting in which we can create, establish, and maintain healthy relationships. We are secure in our abilities to depend upon other people, while also maintaining independence. We can move closer to and further away from other people as we need to.

People with secure attachment see the people they are close to – whom in attachment theory we often call “attachment figures” – as both a safe haven and a secure base (Bowlby, 1979). This is probably easier to understand if we think about secure attachment among children first. A securely attached child sees their caregiver as a safe haven: when they are worried or stressed out, they know they can turn to the caregiver for reassurance and support. They also see their caregiver as a secure base – somebody from whom they can safely venture out into the world and explore.​

In adult relationships, secure attachment looks similar: it means you can confide in and trust the person, but also trust them to support you as you pursue an independent existence. Importantly, people with secure attachment are able to do this because they know how to ask for both closeness and distance, and they trust other people will not reject them for these needs.

​​Another way to look at secure attachment is through the official measures that psychologists have created to measure it. For example, the main scale that psychologists use to study attachment in adults breaks down into subscales measuring the ability to be close to others, the ability to depend on others, and fear of being alone or unloved (Kazan & Shaver, 1987). People with a high ability to be close to others, a high ability to depend on others, and low fear of being alone and unloved are said to be securely attached; they also experience more trust in other people, higher self-esteem, and show more positive beliefs about human nature (Collins & Read, 1990).

Why Is Secure Attachment Important?​

The concept of secure attachment is important because it can explain a great deal of how we perceive the world and because it has been related to better well-being outcomes in many studies (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). People with secure attachment walk around generally expecting the people they meet to be responsive to them; they trust others, feel good about themselves, and have more love in their lives than people with insecure attachment styles (Feeney & Noller, 1990). (More on insecure attachment styles in a moment.) All of this makes people with secure attachment less likely to struggle with emotion regulation, interpersonal challenges, and mental health diagnoses (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012).

Our attachment styles form in childhood and are relatively stable as we age (Fraley, 2002). As a therapist, knowing this has often helped me understand my clients quickly. If a client fills out an attachment scale and their scores suggest they are relatively securely attached, I can assume (although I will ask questions to confirm my suspicions) that they probably have or have had some relationships that were close and supportive. This likely includes at least one attachment figure from their childhood, whether it is a parent, grandparent, family friend, or a coach or mentor.​

Benefits of Secure Attachment

As I’ve already hinted at, people with secure attachment styles tend to be psychologically healthier than people with insecure attachment styles. I’ll share a very interesting research study to illustrate this. Researchers determined the attachment styles of a group of scientists, then observed how these scientists fared psychologically as they worked at an extremely remote Antarctic research station for 12 months (Caputo et al., 2020).

There are two primary, fascinating findings in this study. First, people with secure attachment styles reported less psychological stress and showed little reactivity to stress in their bodies. Second, their genes associated with stress changed much less over the 12 months than the genes of people with less secure attachment styles. The researchers observed that people with secure attachments seem to be more resilient in the face of stress.

Experimental research suggests that it is the imagining or recalling of attachment figures – people with whom we have experienced secure attachment – that helps us deal effectively with stress. For example, people who cope with frightening situations by thinking of people close to them are less fearful of those situations when they encounter them again (Toumbelekis et al., 2021) – and this is something that it is much easier to do when you are securely attached.

There is also research that indicates that people with more secure attachment are more effective leaders in their professional roles (Ronen & Zuroff, 2017). This seems to be attributable to their ability to form effective relationships and manage conflict.​

Causes of Secure Attachment

Secure attachment is established by the important relationships in our lives – none more important than those with our childhood caregivers (Bowlby, 1979). Attachment theory states that each of us creates an “internal working model” of how people relate to each other based on our earliest interactions with other people. People whose earliest experiences feature responsive, warm, and consistent caregiving come to expect the same from interactions with other people moving forward in their lives. A person who experienced the world this way from an early age sees themselves as worthy of love and attention, sees other people as trustworthy and good, and expects to be able to have connection and independence, as they need it, in their interpersonal relationships.

While early experiences set the foundation for a secure attachment style, adults who did not have responsive and consistent caregivers in childhood can still become securely attached to others when they grow up. This is because each and every relationship has the potential for secure attachment, as long as both people are able to work at it and establish it (Fraley, 2002). In my opinion, a common task for couple therapists is to support their clients in establishing secure attachment for the first time with their partners or spouses. Through deliberate efforts, partners can become safe havens and secure bases for each other (Johnson, 2019).​

Examples of Secure Attachment

Imagine a husband and wife having an argument. The wife voices frustration at the husband’s behavior, even though she knows the topic is a vulnerable one for him. He is initially upset but asks for a short break and says he will come back to her to discuss it. After calling a friend of his to talk it through, he returns to his wife, apologizes for his behavior, and asks how he can do better next time. She makes a vulnerable request for what she needs.

​Both spouses in this scenario demonstrate examples of secure attachment. The wife knew she could raise an issue that was sensitive for her husband – she did not avoid it out of fear of pushing him away or hurting him too much. The husband leaned on a friend for support, instead of trying to deal with it all on his own. He then came back and worked to repair the harm in the relationship, and his wife put her needs out there. These are all the actions of two people that trust that their relationship is resilient enough to handle conflict and that they will continue to love each other through disagreement.

Secure Attachment in Adults​

Secure attachment in adults has several key components (Brennan et al., 1998). Securely attached adults are not overly worried about rejection or abandonment, are responsive to their loved ones (and expect the same from their loved ones), and feel good about getting close to and depending on their loved ones (although not to the point of codependency).​

Secure Attachment Characteristics

A primary characteristic of securely attached individuals is that they rely effectively on other people when they feel stressed out or threatened (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). In this case, effectively means that they neither overuse nor underutilize support. People who are insecurely attached, when feeling stressed or fearful, will either cling to sources of support or push them away. Securely attached individuals are able to figure out how much support they need and to ask for it successfully.​

Secure vs Insecure Attachment

I have written repeatedly here about insecure attachment, and it is simply the absence of secure attachment. People with insecure attachment styles are mostly either overly anxious about attachment or overly avoidant of attachment (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). They learned from an early age that attachment figures might not be available when they were needed, or they might be ineffective when they were available. To cope with this situation, the child found that what worked best was to try extra hard to get their needs met by their attachment figures or to keep other people at a distance and handle their emotions on their own. (A small group of people swing back and forth between these attachment styles.)

People with insecure attachment styles experience the world as more threatening – their brain scans even demonstrate this (Karremans et al., 2011). They have become accustomed, typically through a great many distressing personal experiences, to expect that help will not be readily available when they are in a challenging situation.​

How to Develop a Secure Attachment

Psychologists write about the ability to “earn” secure attachment in adulthood. People who find new attachment figures, such as close friends, partners, therapists, or mentors, and build healthy relationships with them, can develop secure attachment styles (Saunders et al., 2011). These adults can experience the benefits of secure attachment once they have established it (Roisman et al., 2002).

This is easier said than done: building a healthy, secure relationship when one has not experienced this before is no easy task. It takes many experiences over time for these experiences with an effective attachment figure to generalize to our understandings of the world at large (Gillath et al., 2008).​

Secure Attachment in Romantic Relationships

One of the most popular and effective therapies for couples – Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) – is based entirely on the premise of attachment theory (Johnson, 2019). EFT therapists help couples experience moments of secure attachment with each other, and healthier relationships result. This is also no small task because most couples that seek therapy do so because their insecure attachment styles make it harder to get and stay close to each other (Simpson, 1990). At the heart of almost all healthy relationships, however, is a foundation of secure attachment that allows the couple to navigate life’s challenges together.​

Secure Attachment and Therapy

People in therapy themselves have provided insight into how secure attachment is developed (Dansby Olufowote et al., 2020). Clinicians can become attachment figures for clients, and through bravely engaging in secure attachment behaviors, clients can develop that sense of secure attachment. This primarily takes the form of asking for support, showing vulnerability, and learning that a reasonable amount of dependence on another person is safe and helpful.

Secure Attachment and Breakups

As you might expect by now, securely attached people have an easier time with romantic relationship breakups. At least one study suggests that people higher in secure attachment are less likely to worry about seeing their exes, less likely to want the person back, less angry at their exes, and ready more quickly to start dating again (Madey & Jilek, 2012).

Articles Related to Secure Attachment​

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Secure Attachment​

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Secure Attachment​

I want to end this article on a clear note: while attachment styles tend to be stable, they absolutely can and do change (Waters et al., 2000). Just as negative experiences with attachment figures can lead to insecure attachment, positive experiences of intimacy and relationship can move us toward more secure attachment. This is true in my own personal and professional experience, and I hope it can be in yours, too. If you would like more information about what it is like to be securely attached or be around people with secure attachment, check out the following video:​

Video: Secure Attachment​

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