How to Fix Anxious Attachment Style According to a Therapist
Takeaway: If you have an anxious attachment style, you might feel constantly worried about rejection, overanalyze your relationships, or struggle with a deep fear of abandonment. The good news? With these tips, you can begin to shift toward a healthier, more secure attachment style.
When one client first came to me, she was caught in a cycle of constant worry and fear of abandonment in her relationships. Every text or missed call from her partner sent her spiraling into anxiety, and she often found herself overthinking their every move. Despite her partner reassuring her time and time again, my client still felt uncertain and insecure, unable to break free from her anxious attachment style.
I'm Madeleine Phelan, a licensed therapist with expertise in attachment theory and relational dynamics. Over the years, I've worked with many individuals like this client, helping them understand and heal from attachment anxiety. In this piece, I’ll share therapist-approved strategies to help you heal your anxious attachment style and move toward more secure relationships. These exercises will help you build emotional regulation skills, improve self esteem enhance self-awareness, self soothe anxious attachment, and ultimately create healthier, more secure platonic and romantic relationships. Whether you're just beginning your journey or looking to deepen your healing, these strategies will guide you toward more healthy boundaries and confident, balanced connections.
15 expert-approved tips for healing anxious attachment
Healing an anxious attachment style can be a transformative journey for your mental health. In this guide, I’ll share expert-approved strategies to help you start healing your anxious attachment patterns. These exercises are sorted by difficulty, allowing you to begin at a level that feels comfortable and manageable for you. Whether you're just starting or ready for deeper work, these tips can support your progress toward healthier relationships and a more securely attachment style.
Beginner-level tips for dealing with anxious attachment
1. Practice Mindful Breathing
How to do it: Whenever you feel anxious or overwhelmed by attachment-related thoughts, pause and focus on your breath. Try breathing in for 4 counts, holding for 4, and exhaling for 4. Do this for a few minutes, either sitting quietly or while taking a break during daily activities.
How it helps: Mindful breathing calms the nervous system, reducing physical anxiety. It helps you stay grounded in the present moment, rather than spiraling into anxious thoughts about relationships, allowing you to respond more thoughtfully rather than reacting impulsively.
2. Challenge Negative Thoughts
How to do it: When you noticing you feel insecure or have thoughts like “They don’t care about me” or “I’ll always be abandoned,” take a step back. Write down these thoughts, then counter them with more balanced alternatives like, “They might be busy, but they care about me” or “My relationships are capable of growing with trust and communication.”
How it helps: Challenging negative thoughts encourages a shift in perspective, helping to reduce feelings of insecurity. By replacing extreme beliefs with more balanced ones, you build self-assurance and open the door to healthier attachments.
3. Set Boundaries with Yourself
How to do it: Create small but meaningful boundaries to prevent yourself from overthinking or obsessing about others. For example, limit the number of times you check your phone for messages in a day or set times when you focus on self-care and avoid relationship-related conversations.
How it helps: Setting boundaries with yourself gives you control over your emotions and reactions. It helps break patterns of constant reassurance-seeking, which can worsen anxiety and prevents you from becoming too reliant on others for emotional regulation.
4. Track Your Triggers
How to do it: Start a journal where you note the times when you feel particularly anxious in relationships. Record what happened, how you felt, and any thoughts or behaviors that emerged. Look for patterns and identify the situations or actions that seem to trigger your anxiety.
How it helps: Tracking your triggers helps you understand what specifically activates your anxious attachment. By becoming more aware of these triggers, you can prepare yourself to respond with more calm and mindfulness, rather than reacting from a place of fear.
5. Practice Self-Compassion
How to do it: When you feel anxious or insecure, instead of criticizing yourself, practice self-kindness. Speak to yourself the way you would a close friend who’s struggling. For example, say to yourself, “It’s okay to feel anxious sometimes. I’m doing the best I can, and that’s enough.”
How it helps: Self-compassion reduces the shame and self-judgment that often accompany anxious attachment. It helps you embrace your emotions with kindness, making it easier to cope with anxiety and move forward with confidence in your healing journey.
By incorporating these beginner-level exercises into your routine, you can begin to ease the effects of anxious attachment and create a foundation for healthier, more balanced relationships.
Intermediate-level tips for healing from anxious attachment
6. Practice Vulnerability in Small Steps
How to do it: Start by opening up to someone you trust about something small, like a current challenge or feeling. For example, share how you’re feeling about a situation at work or a recent personal struggle, without fear of judgment. Gradually increase the depth of your vulnerability as you build trust and comfort.
How it helps: Allowing yourself to be vulnerable helps you form deeper, more authentic connections. It also teaches you that sharing your true self can lead to positive, supportive responses, reducing your fear of abandonment or rejection.
7. Cultivate Emotional Regulation Techniques
How to do it: Identify emotions as they arise and practice techniques like labeling your feelings (“I feel anxious right now”) or using grounding exercises (like focusing on your senses) to stay present. When you're feeling overwhelmed, try engaging in a calming activity like journaling or a short walk to manage your emotions in real time.
How it helps: Learning emotional regulation helps you manage the intensity of your feelings, which is crucial when dealing with anxious attachment. It reduces the chances of acting impulsively or becoming overly dependent on others for emotional stability, leading to healthier responses to stress.
8. Engage in Self-Reflection
How to do it: Set aside time weekly for self-reflection. Write in a journal or meditate on the reasons behind your anxious thoughts and behaviors. For example, reflect on past relationships or childhood experiences that may have shaped your attachment style, and notice any recurring patterns.
How it helps: Self-reflection allows you to connect your present anxiety with past experiences, helping you understand the root causes. This awareness can empower you to break old patterns and make conscious choices in your relationships moving forward.
9. Communicate Your Needs Clearly
How to do it: Instead of waiting for your partner or friends to guess what you need, practice expressing your desires directly. For example, say, “I feel more secure when I hear from you during the day, even if it’s just a quick message,” or “I need some space to process my thoughts right now, but I’m not upset with you.”
How it helps: Clear communication helps reduce misinterpretations and reassures you and others that your needs are valid. It builds trust and promotes healthier, more transparent relationships where both people feel heard and respected.
10. Establish Healthy Routine and Boundaries in Relationships
How to do it: Create predictable routines with your partner or close friends to reduce anxiety. For instance, establish a pattern of checking in with each other at a specific time or set boundaries like not texting late at night to ensure space for individual activities.
How it helps: Routines and boundaries provide a sense of stability and control, which can alleviate the fear of unpredictability that often comes with anxious attachment. Knowing what to expect from others helps foster trust and security in relationships.
By incorporating these intermediate-level strategies, you’ll deepen your understanding of your anxious attachment patterns, including your emotional triggers, and gain more control over your emotional responses. With consistent effort, these practices can significantly enhance your self-awareness, emotional health, and relational dynamics.
Advanced tips for managing anxious attachment
11. Challenge Core Beliefs About Yourself and Relationships
How to do it: Identify and confront the deep-seated beliefs that fuel your anxious attachment, such as “I’m not worthy of love” or “I will always be abandoned.” For example, if you believe that your partner will eventually leave you, examine past relationships to find evidence that challenges this belief. You might also work with a therapist to reframe these thoughts.
How it helps: Challenging these core beliefs can transform your self-worth and how you approach relationships. By replacing negative beliefs with more balanced and positive perspectives, you’ll reduce the anxiety that often stems from feeling unworthy or fearing abandonment, allowing for healthier, more secure connections.
12. Develop and Practice Secure Attachment Behaviors
How to do it: Start implementing behaviors that are associated with secure attachment. For example, practice self-soothing techniques when you feel triggered, like repeating affirmations such as, “I am safe, and I am enough.” In relationships, focus on staying emotionally present without clinging or withdrawing when fear arises.
How it helps: Developing secure attachment behaviors strengthens your emotional resilience and helps you break free from anxious patterns. These behaviors help you interact more confidently and securely with others, which reduces anxiety and fosters trust in your relationships.
13. Revisit and Heal Childhood Attachment Wounds
How to do it: Explore your early attachment experiences with a therapist or through self-reflection to identify any unresolved childhood wounds that may be contributing to your anxious attachment. For instance, if you experienced inconsistent caregiving or neglect as a child, acknowledge the impact that these early experiences have had on your adult relationships.
How it helps: Healing childhood attachment wounds can provide profound relief from the chronic anxiety that often characterizes anxious attachment. By processing these deep-rooted issues, you’ll learn to recognize and separate past trauma from present relationship dynamics, leading to healthier attachments in the future.
14. Build and Practice Self-Reliance
How to do it: Make a conscious effort to engage in activities that enhance your self-sufficiency and independence. For example, focus on hobbies or interests that bring you joy and fulfillment outside of relationships, like pursuing a creative passion, advancing in your career, or prioritizing self-care routines that strengthen your emotional foundation.
How it helps: Fostering self-reliance helps you reduce emotional dependence on others, which is often at the root of anxious attachment. By building a strong sense of self-worth and independence, you can feel more secure and balanced in your relationships, without over-relying on others for validation or emotional support.
15. Engage in Exposure Work for Relationship Anxiety
How to do it: Gradually expose yourself to situations that trigger your anxious attachment, such as waiting for a response to a text message without immediately seeking reassurance or navigating difficult conversations about your feelings. This exposure can be done in a controlled and safe manner, ideally with the support of a therapist, to help you manage anxiety without avoiding the situation.
How it helps: Gradual exposure to anxiety-inducing situations helps desensitize the fear and allows you to develop healthier coping mechanisms. This approach teaches you that your anxiety will subside over time, and you are capable of managing difficult emotions without relying on others for constant reassurance.
By implementing these advanced-level strategies, you’ll dive deeper into healing your anxious attachment, addressing the intense fear that may be rooted in your experiences, and work on transforming the fundamental ways you relate to yourself and others. These exercises require more effort but are essential for creating lasting change and building healthier, more secure relationships.
When to consider therapy for healing anxious attachment
As you progress in healing from anxious attachment, these intermediate-level strategies can offer more tools to help you manage and understand your emotions. While these exercises can be incredibly helpful for someone with an anxious attachment style, especially for those who had emotionally unavailable parents, it's important to remember that they are not a substitute for professional therapy. If you find that these exercises aren’t enough or if your anxiety around relationships continues to feel overwhelming, therapy can offer more targeted support. Below are some signs that therapy could be beneficial for you:
You consistently struggle with intense feelings of insecurity around emotional closeness in relationships.
You want to understand how anxious attachment style triggers can be navigated more easily.
You experience frequent emotional dysregulation, feeling unable to manage anxiety or fear.
Past traumas or attachment wounds are significantly impacting your ability to form healthy relationships.
You find it difficult to break unhealthy attachment patterns, even after trying self-help strategies.
You have an attachment avoidant or anxious partner.
Your anxious attachment affects your overall well-being or daily life.
Seeking professional help can be a powerful step toward healing and can be helpful with a variety of mental health conditions that can be concurrent with an insecure attachment style. With the right support, you can continue making progress and building more secure, fulfilling connections.
Final thoughts
Healing from anxious attachment is a journey that takes time, patience, and consistent effort. The exercises outlined in this guide can be powerful tools to help you manage your anxiety and cultivate more secure relationships.
While these strategies can bring significant relief, they work best when used in conjunction with therapy, where deeper emotional work and personalized support can take place.
I work with many clients who struggle with intense feelings of abandonment in romantic relationships. Through therapy, we explore the root causes of each individual's anxious attachment, which often stem from early childhood experiences of inconsistency in caregiving. Over time, we incorporate exercises like self-reflection and emotional regulation techniques, which help increase feeling of confidence and reduce fear in relationships. By integrating these strategies into therapy, clients are able to gradually shift their attachment style, forming more secure and fulfilling connections.
If you’re ready to take the next step in healing your attachment style, I’d love to support you by speaking in a free 30 minute phone consult. As a licensed psychotherapist specializing in attachment theory and healing attachment wounds, I can help you understand the root causes of your anxious attachment style and provide tailored strategies to help you build healthier, more securely attached relationships. Let's work together to unlock the life and connections you deserve.
