Healing Anxious Attachment: A Therapist’s Guide to Reconnecting with Yourself
By Jewels Tauzin
As a therapist, I often meet with clients who describe themselves as having an anxious attachment style. Phrases like, “I just care more than others” or “I always end up being the one who tries harder” are common phrases from people who identify with the anxious attachment style. The term has become common in our cultural language, but a deeper understanding of what’s behind the phrase is often missing.
Recognizing the Patterns of Anxious Attachment
While anxious attachment can look different for everyone, research shows several recurring patterns that tend to appear across relationships (Kobak & Bosmans, 2019). Recognizing these can help us understand what’s really happening underneath the surface:
Hypervigilance to connection. Constantly scanning for signs of distance, disinterest, or rejection. Experiencing a delayed text, a change in tone, or a moment of silence can feel like abandonment. This can result in overcompensating in relationships and taking ownership over problems that aren’t ours to begin with.
Overfunctioning in relationships. Taking responsibility for emotional closeness by managing, fixing, or caretaking others, which manifests as believing that love is something you earn.
Emotional intensity. Mistaking anxiety or longing for chemistry. Calm relationships can feel “off” or “boring,” while unstable ones feel intoxicating.
Self-abandonment. Minimizing your own needs, opinions, or limits to preserve connection, often confusing peace with the absence of conflict.
Beyond Fear and Control
When we talk about anxious attachment, what we are really talking about is fear— fear of losing connection, of being too much, and that love will go away if we are not continually performing, sacrificing, and caretaking. Attachment theory tells us that these patterns begin in childhood when caregiving is inconsistent and unpredictable. We learn that closeness and comfort aren’t guaranteed, and as adults, we may find ourselves seeking reassurance from those who can’t give it to us or minimizing our needs to maintain a sense of safety (Kerns & Brumariu, 2014).
This framework is valuable for understanding why this dynamic is there to begin with, but I’ve found that, in the therapy room, it sometimes falls short in helping us to actually heal. Much of the anxious attachment style TikTok advice that clients come in with sounds something like– “don’t chase,” “avoid avoidants,” and “learn how to self-soothe.” Advice like this focuses on control rather than connection. While it can momentarily feel like progress, it ultimately asks us to shrink ourselves and is still focused on fixing a relationship with someone else. However, healing from anxious attachment isn’t about needing less from others, but rather learning to stay connected to the one person who you will always be in relationship with— yourself, even when your external relationships feel uncertain.
Codependency vs. Connection to Self
This is why I personally love to bring in the idea of codependency into the therapy space. Originally developed within addiction recovery literature, codependency describes a pattern of over-functioning in relationship– putting others’ needs above your own, losing your sense of self, or equating love with caretaking (Rusnáková, 2014). Recovery from codependency isn’t about needing less, self-soothing, or detaching, but rather it’s about the long, rewarding journey home to yourself. It’s the question, “What if I brought my full self into this relationship? What would happen then?”
When we integrate the frameworks of both attachment theory and codependency, the healing process becomes more authentic. Instead of the focus being on calming anxiety, the focus shifts to rebuilding a relationship with yourself that’s steady, nurturing, and self-honoring. It’s trusting that once that relationship blooms, your relationships with others will find their right shape.
If you’re someone who identifies with the term “anxiously attached," this week, I encourage you to look for small moments of self-connection. Can you pause before immediately tending to someone else’s needs? Can you notice when you’re abandoning yourself to maintain closeness? Moments like this over time are quiet but powerful steps towards healing. When we start choosing ourselves, not out of defensiveness but out of love for ourselves and others, we begin to create the secure base we’ve longed for this whole time.
If you’d like to meet with Jewels or any of the therapists at our practice to explore your connection to yourself, you can check out our bios here or click below to contact us and make an appointment. We look forward to working with you!
References
Kerns, K. A., & Brumariu, L. E. (2014). Is insecure parent–child attachment a risk factor for the development of anxiety in childhood or adolescence? Child Development Perspectives, 8(1), 12–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12054
Kobak, R., & Bosmans, G. (2019). Attachment and psychopathology: A dynamic model of the insecure cycle. Current Opinion in Psychology, 25, 76–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.03.005
Rusnáková, M. (2014). Codependency of the members of a family of an alcohol addict. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 132, 479–484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.04.341
