The 4 Attachment Styles Explained | What’s Yours?

Psychologists will say when you enter into a relationship you take on ONE of FOUR major personality types. These are known as “Attachment Styles” - And this video will be like seeing for the first time in your relationships!

Chapters:

0:00 WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS
0:37 Two Things BEFORE You Watch!
1:50 Secure Attachment
2:45 Avoidant Attachment
5:20 The Attachment Matrix Explained
6:00 Anxious Attachment
9:00 Fearful Attachment
11:15 The Best Relationship Advice Ever...

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WHO AM I
Hey there, I’m Clark Kegley, a pro drummer turned self-improvement advocate. Here on YouTube, I provide guidance to help you transform into your 2.0 version.

P.S. Some of the links in this description are affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you purchase through them. It's a great way to support the channel at no extra cost to you 👊

[clarkkegley]

Dig this video? Check out our other popular "Bro-science" guides:

[andreaceleste]

I feel like I’ve been all four of these at some point in time

[kalypso]

“we need relationships”
me as an avoidant: do we though?

why am i like this😭😭😭

[OfficialWimpydoll]

I'm an anxious who fell in love with an avoidant. It was so hard to communicate your feelings. Sometimes it felt like you are demanding for something you think you deserve. 🥲

[KevinKnight]

Fearful can actually oscillate between anxious and avoidant. It’s super frustrating too.

[shivii]

Anxious avoidant is something I have been 20 years of my life. PEOPLE PLEASER, separation anxiety, low self esteem, poor self image, feeling unworthy of love, sensitive to criticism, indecisive, etc etc. I was all these things. Dark times! But then you learn that you'll have to become your own parent and my career in psychology helped me through this. ♥

[omegabae]

I'm a woman and I'm avoidant. In conflicts I go super cold and dismissive. I'm currently happily single, but I'm working on it, because I don't like how it plays out with my daughter. I tried to give her an emotional vocabulary since early on and try to be available for her emotional needs, but I have little to no patience for any emotional outbursts. I sometimes fail her in that regard. However, I make sure to always apologize for hurting her feelings and try to do better. I love her so so much, and I want her to be secure in my love. Working on it.

[savannahnalls]

I used to be fearful-avoidant before undergoing therapy. I am secure now.

[elliotmorgananderson]

I was the anxious style until I had a relationship that I lost, and in my neediness tried to make it work, which made me rethink how I approached relationships. It sort of forced me to "grow up" and not be so emotionally attached in such a dramatic and harmful way. Paradoxically, that threw me down the other side of the hill to being avoidant. I knew I needed to build myself and rely on myself, and slowly but surely, overtime I did just that, as I built that trust within myself and built up my self-respect through becoming a stronger man mentally and emotionally. Now I'm on the edge, nearly to secure, and it feels great. Amazing actually. Quite impossible to describe just how mind-bending it is. Its the fleas in a jar analogy, eventually they forget that they are actually supposed to jump higher, that that is what is truly normal, but instead they keep themselves bogged. Anyway, its a struggle to grow and rewire how you perceive yourself and how you perceive others, but it is worth it. Your world goes from chaotic or boring, to how life should be: calm, full of love, beautiful, without inhibition, fun, and full of life. Thanks for the explanation Clark, this was helpful in defining my situation and experiences based on all of this for myself and that I really am as close as I thought to normal: "secure".

[anonplussedhuman]

Spent years in therapy and actually moving away naturally from anxious and into secure. The major things helping are learning how to slow down, not immediately react to a trigger, stop my focus on someone else and redirect my thoughts from thinking of them into thinking about if my needs are being met. My therapist has been coaching me to frequently ask myself, “what do I want?”. I’m much more at peace but also have learned that avoidants can’t typically meet my needs to I don’t try to push them on them. I find someone else who’s porridge is just right. It works and am very happy.

[gurudra]

Attachment is the root cause of most suffering🙏

[davidofdqr]

I'm actually in therapy now processing a lot of my childhood trauma. In my experience, especially after watching this video, I find that I have fluctuated among the three insecure attachments. In my early 20's, I was anxious. Then in my mid to late twenties, I was fearful. Now, I am avoidant, especially after achieving some great success on my own. My current goal is to break down the walls that I build so that I can have a secure attachment.

[raymondtendau]

The stronger the attachment there is to a thing, the greater the fear of loosing it.

[toomuchrandy]

I'm actually a male in the anxious attachment archetype. There's a few things:

This archetype is the lonliest.
The low self worth to higher others worth is spot on. However, its portrayed wrong at least from my experience.
The problem i feel isn't covered here is the anxiety(and or abuses): anxiousness stems from the feeling of an approaching unknown. Sometimes very fast unfair or uncontrollable ones. Uncertainty can cause anyone to hesitate, and that repeated action, is all it takes to doubt yourself.

The unknown and uncertain is paradoxical and is both nothing and everything, the more it's perceived the more it's present that way. This builds anxiety. Associating it with your fear and attaching it to your partners actions, is usually how this happens. I believe this archetype usually falls in the category of 'sensitive' people rather than women, but has a larger female population ratio because of the way women are treated.
Men typically being more aggressive can give more reason and action, to question why someone loves you, especially if it involves violence. Women can of course do the same, however are less inclined to as the physical differences and culture may prohibit it.
Instead, why it is rare for men to be in anxious attachment is simple. Its because the men in this archetype are outliers: They literally have extremely high value placed on their woman and her feelings. So much so its usually vastly greater than their own. They gain happiness from seeing they make someone else happy, kind of like a back and fourth between your feelings to mine. However, failure to do so removes this immediate illusion. Your partner cannot always be happy. Instead of persevering it, anxiety builds from fear of your woman absolutely shatter your heart, your relationship, or you.

Factors like relationship dynamics certainly can cause it, but something very important to be realized here is that everyone has a heart in the beginning. The way you treat yourself, absolutely has an affect on the people of your heart.

Self worth matters in relationships. Everyone has a heart, the way you leave someone can seriously hurt them, and could even land them in this archetype run by fear. Actions out of fear instead of love always lead to heartbreak. Remember to bring out the best in both of you, for your self AND one another. If you need to separate, please don't let them feel they deserve it.
Nobody deserves to be hurt, otherwise you wouldn't have entered the relationship with said person. You saw their best, and thats why they were worth the try in the first place right? Unless the person is truly malicious and cruel then don't let them blame themselves. Letting any man or woman lose self worth because of your actions, can lead to depression and anxiety in their future. And even worse, a huge amount of loneliness and self neglect...

Being the overly attached man in this archetype you:
Don't have much self esteem/confidence.
Might be called shy, even though you're just battling fear inside.
Begin to fear attempts at new relationships and avoid women you like. Atually because you don't want to be hurt.
Pushed you into fearing her reactions overall so you overthink.
Are fucked by anxiety more than by her, because anxiety for men is worse seeing as though it can make your dick stop working.

Anxiety does NOT push you toward relatioships fast after being hurt. It makes you hang onto them super hard because you will fear either losing them, or them hurting you again. It makes you think over and over about the outcome of whether or not something bad is going to happen just because you wanna communicate you like someone intimately. You spend more time thinking and rethinking what to do, then all confidence in your decision is gone. And so is the person you wanted so badly, and maybe even once had.

[kristinb]

I was a (very) fearful attachment style, but then a cute, good-hearted, securely attached, checked-all-the-logical-boxes person became infatuated with me and we decided to give a serious relationship a go. The first couple years were turbulent, mostly because of my trauma and insecurities lashing out in the anxious-avoidant style, but 9 years later I'm in an incredibly securely attached relationship, with the tools to internally work through my own issues if any anxiety comes up again. I know that my situation is lucky af and rare, but still... change is possible. You can heal if you set your mind to it, and life is so much better once you do. <3

[michirista]

"We are not designed to be alone we need people to survive" exactly the interdependency (or attachment) from another human being is completely normal and necessary is a coping mechanism to survive since prehistoric times is in your DNA so don't blame yourself for that !!!

[maxwellji]

OMG, PERFECT EXPLANATION... however, I believe many people are a mixture of these 4. I am some avoidant, some anxious, a little fearful, but never secure... lol.

[etherealsolutions]

I believe I am an avoidant right now a bit.
I would like to be secure. I’ve been doing the work that needs to be done and I hold myself accountable for it. Sometimes I don’t give others the same grace I’ll give myself considering i’ve been hurt so much by others. Thank you for this video!

[UKLady]

This is amazingly described and so easy to relate to.
I just came out of a relationship with an avoidant dismmisive and I'm an fearful anxious type.
It's confirmation that we were so wrong and toxic in our current states: I've moved away to work on me and it is clearly the best decision I've made in years!
I'm now surrounding myself with people who's attachment styles compliment my own and who can nurture me in my ongoing path to being a better human each day.

[steffiekensley]

I really enjoy and appreciate your comical but informative presentation of this. You don't seem to have a bias toward one insecure attachment style over another. It's sad to read all the comments from people who've been deeply wounded by perpetually emotionally unavailable people and then come to a channel to gain insight about their partner's attachment style only to be further condemned. They're there simply trying to understand the cavernous lack of reciprocity and head-scratching mixed signals and instead walk away reprimanded for lamenting the hypocritical expectations they've survived and prayerfully escaped. Those biases can really hurt people who are already hurting but humor, lightheartedness and fun make the information processing a lot more palatable. Great work! Thank you! 🙏