Sometimes people do not come to this question out of curiosity. They come out of exhaustion. The same relationship pattern keeps repeating, even when the people change. After a while, something in you starts to wonder if it is fate, wiring, or memory. Read this if you have ever felt the quiet dread of hearing yourself in the same argument again. The same pull toward closeness or retreat. The same ache afterward. What you will leave with is language for the pattern, a way to spot the moment where it starts to flip, and a decision point about whether change is possible in the life you are living, not the one you wish you had.
I have lived with this question in my work for a long time. In therapy rooms, research interviews, supervision groups, and everyday conversations. Across families, friendships, and workplaces, where closeness and authority sit awkwardly together. People ask if their attachment style is who they are, or something that formed and might still shift. I remember reading Bowlby in 1988 while I was still training. He kept returning to the idea that attachment grows from lived experience, not inner defect. It felt less like a lesson and more like something I was finally allowed to name.
The answer still is not simple. Yes, attachment can change. But not in a clean, motivational way. It changes slowly and unevenly. It is shaped by context, nervous system learning, and relationships that stay steady instead of trying to impress. Later work called this earned secure attachment. Main in 1990 wrote about coherence growing when fear stops running every response. I have seen that happen in moments. Sometimes it holds. Sometimes it loosens again.
And then life shifts everything. Parenthood, illness, migration, loss, and power changes at work. I have watched people who were moving toward security slide back into avoidance under pressure they did not choose. Or move into anxiety when stability cracks. Attachment does not only move forward. It responds to the world it lives in.
What It Really Means For An Attachment Style To Be Learned
Attachment forms in the nervous system before language. A child reaches out. The body records what comes back. When I reach for comfort, what happens? Sometimes warmth. Sometimes unpredictability. Sometimes closeness mixed with fear. The nervous system adapts.
Years later, it can show up as relationship anxiety or distance. Fear of intimacy. Push-pull closeness. Dependence. Emotional shutdown during conflict. I have seen the same pattern appear in friendships, family systems, and workplace hierarchies. A manager who goes emotionally blank during tension. A friend who clings when plans feel uncertain. A parent who moves closer and then retreats without meaning to. For example, this might show up between a parent and adult child when independence and privacy are not talked about clearly.
People call it personality. I rarely do. These are protective strategies that grew inside particular emotional conditions.
Bowlby 1988 was already leaning there. Johnson 2008 noticed it again in couples, how safety changes behavior more than willpower. If strategies are formed through experience, different experiences can soften them. Sometimes. Not always. Some histories resist movement. Some environments do not stop hurting people.
And sometimes the real question under “can my attachment style change” sounds more like this: can I stop living inside an old story my body still remembers.
Earned Secure Attachment: What Change Looks Like In Real Life
Change does not feel like reinvention. It feels like space showing up between feeling and reaction. People tell me the panic still rises. So does the urge to test, disappear, or hold too tightly. But sometimes there is a pause. A breath. A sentence instead of a reflex. Needs to be spoken instead of swallowed. Staying present in conflict instead of collapsing. Boundaries held without leaving. For example, this could apply with siblings when old roles keep replaying, like “the responsible one” versus “the carefree one.”
Someone once said, “I still expect abandonment in my body, but I do not behave as if it is guaranteed anymore.” It sounded a lot like what Main was describing in 1990, though this person had never read her work.
There is grief in this process, too. Becoming more secure can mean seeing what was not given. It can also mean realizing that growth requires leaving relationships that keep pulling the pattern back into place. I have watched people become more secure and lonelier for a while. That part rarely shows up in theory.
It does not look perfect. It looks like steadiness, repair, and less collapse under fear. Johnson 2008 wrote about emotional safety, slowly changing behavior. That matches what I have seen more often than not. Sometimes the work is not repeating something, even when nothing new has filled its place yet.
How Attachment Styles Begin To Change Over Time
Emotionally Safe Relationships Re-Teach The Nervous System
Change arrives through repetition, not intensity. Stability does what intensity cannot. Emotional reliability. Respect. Being met instead of dismissed. Someone staying present through tension instead of punishing or retreating.
I have seen it in relationships, friendships, therapy, and community. In conversations that do not look dramatic. A partner remembers a boundary. A friend responds gently instead of withdrawing. A colleague handling conflict without humiliation. Slowly, the nervous system stops bracing for abandonment before anything has happened. It loosens a little. For example, at work, this can show up between a manager and direct report when expectations are clear, feedback is steady, and support is real.
Patterns do not vanish. They soften.
Not every environment allows softening. Some families punish vulnerability. Some workplaces reward detachment. In those places, becoming more secure can feel unsafe. Research talks about capacity. Life talks about conditions. In family settings, this might show up with grandparents or in-laws when traditions and expectations are implied instead of said out loud.
Awareness Turns Reaction Into Choice
Often, the first change is awareness in the moment. I feel anxious because distance scares me, not because love is breaking. I want to shut down because closeness feels dangerous. Maybe I can stay one breath longer. For example, this might show up with classmates during group work when tasks are unclear, and you notice yourself either taking over or pulling away.
That hinge is small. Some days, the reaction wins anyway. Other days it does not. The hinge remains.
There is another kind of awareness,s too. You see the same reaction appear across three partners, two friendships, and a tense conversation with a supervisor. At first, it can feel like shame. Over time, it can become direction. Not a verdict. A map.
Progress rarely feels decisive. More often,n it feels unsure.
Healing At The Nervous System Level
Attachment lives in the body. I have seen people freeze mid-sentence while something older takes over. Fight, cling, withdraw, go blank. I have caught myself doing it too. The nervous system answers first.
Work that helps the body tolerate connection matters. Grounding. Presence. Gentle somatic awareness. Trauma-informed pacing. Slow exposure to safety. Main 1990 described coherence as the ability to hold feelings without collapse. I have watched that appear in brief, steady moments. It usually does not arrive as a permanent shift.
Sometimes progress is staying present for two seconds longer than last year. Under stress, people often revert to older strategies and believe everything is lost. It is not. The nervous system keeps traces.
My sense of what success means has softened over time.
Rewriting Internal Beliefs About Love And Safety
Beneath behavior are beliefs that feel truer than facts. If I am not needed, I will be left. If I depend on someone, I will disappear. If I get close, I will be hurt. People rarely say them out loud. They live them.
Healing does not erase those beliefs with positivity. It introduces a lived experience that pushes back on the past. I can be close and still be myself. Some relationships are stable. I am allowed to ask for what I need. For example, this can show up with a close friend when support has been one-way, and you start naming what you needtoo.
Beliefs shift slowly. Stress pulls old logic back into place. I have seen people fall back into patterns they thought were gone. That does not undo the work. It shows how deep the first story runs.
Sometimes, transformation is not full trust. It is taking small risks with trust.
Signs Your Attachment Style May Already Be Changing
Often the signs are quiet:
- pausing before reacting
- speaking honestly instead of adapting silently
- staying present through discomfort
- repairing after conflict instead of disappearing
- choosing steadier relationships
- trusting your own judgment a little more
- feeling less afraid of being known
Outside, these look small. Inside, they can be enormous. Sometimes they feel bittersweet.
Can Change Happen Without Therapy
Sometimes yes. I have seen people change through friendship, community, stable partnership, reflection, and safer environments. But therapy is often a major part of real change. For many people, it is the most direct place where patterns can be seen clearly and worked with safely.
Therapy helps because it gives you a steady relationship where emotion can move without you being punished for it. It gives structure, pacing, and repair. It also helps when your history includes trauma, chronic stress, or relationships that keep reopening the same wound. In those cases, trying to change without support can be much harder.
Attachment-focused work, EFT, somatic approaches, IFS, and relational psychodynamic therapy can all support this. Different paths, similar goals. Johnson 2008 wrote that security strengthens when emotion reshapes the inside connection. Therapy is one of the clearest places to build that kind of connection on purpose.
Sometimes therapy does not shift things right away. It can be the wrong fit. Or you are too tired. Or life is louder than the room. That does not mean therapy is not important. It may mean you need a better match, a different approach, or more support around your basic life conditions.
Change remains relational, wherever it happens.
Common Misconceptions About Attachment Change
Once insecure, always insecure. Time has argued with that, even if traces remain.
Healing requires the perfect relationship. Most growth I have seen happens in imperfect ones that are safe enough.
If triggers still appear, healing has not happened. Triggers do not vanish. Regulation gets stronger. Repair becomes possible.
Some people worry that security will erase intensity or independence. It does not. It reduces fear as a driver. For example, in shared living situations, this can show up with roommates when chores, guests, or noise are talked about early instead of left to resentment.
A Realistic Timeline For Change
This moves slowly. People progress, relapse, stabilize, regress. I used to call that failure. Now it looks more like practice. The nervous system is testing unfamiliar ground.
There is no timetable. Sometimes “more secure than before” is the transformation.
Progress often contradicts itself.
Reflection For The Reader
Places worth noticing:
- Where the old pattern still tightens
- What your body learned about danger and closeness early on
- Where steadiness already exists in your life
- What healing might look like without constant defense
- Whether growth feels hopeful, frightening, or both
Not answers. Just direction.
The Main Takeaway
Attachment grows inside the conditions you survived. Change seems to happen when the nervous system learns, slowly, that connection does not always require armor anymore. The past remains. The present becomes less brittle. I am not sure the process ever fully resolves.
Sometimes the work is staying with the question.
Questions People Often Ask
Sometimes yes, but slowly. It tends to shift through repeated safe experiences more than sudden insight.
Sometimes closeness softens defenses. Sometimes it magnifies them. Stability matters more.
I have seen strategies shift across contexts, especially when safety feels uncertain.
Then it often begins in smaller places. Boundaries. Selective closeness. Steadier environments. For example, this might show up with neighbors or acquaintances when you stop forcing politeness and start naming small limits.
History, culture, loss, power, family experience. Patterns are relational. For example, in school settings, this might show up with a teacher or mentor when feedback lands as judgment because of older experiences with authority.
Yes. Growth and grief often arrive together.
References
- Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York, NY: Basic Books. (Google Books)
- Main, M., & Hesse, E. (1990). Parents’ unresolved traumatic experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status: Is frightened and/or frightening parental behavior the linking mechanism? In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E. M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention (pp. 161–182). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (SCIRP)
- Johnson, S. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. New York, NY: Little, Brown. (iceeft.com)
