Do Attachment Styles Really Change? Debunking 6 Common Myths (From a Licensed Attachment Therapist)
“How do I change my attachment style?”
“Can anxious or avoidant attachment be healed?”
“Do I need to be securely attached to have a healthy relationship?”
These are some of the most common questions I hear echoed in my therapy room, and the same questions that bring many people to attachment-based therapy feeling frustrated, broken, or behind.
As a licensed attachment-based psychotherapist serving clients in Ottawa and virtually across Ontario, I want to gently challenge the way attachment theory is often presented online. Many clients arrive believing they need to fix, override, or outgrow their attachment style before they can have the relationship they want.
My clinical experience tells a very different story.
Attachment work is not about forcing yourself into a different category. It’s about understanding how your attachment developed, accepting its protective role, and learning how to work with it rather than against it.
Here are six attachment theory myths that keep people stuck and what helps healing happen:
Myth #1: You Only Have One Attachment Style
Truth: You can hold more than one attachment style.
Attachment is relational. This means your attachment responses can shift depending on who you are with and what the dynamic feels like.
You may notice that you feel:
Anxious in one relationship
Avoidant in another
Fairly secure with friends, but activated in romantic partnerships
This just means your nervous system is responding to different relational cues. Many people hold multiple attachment patterns, especially if they’ve had varied relational experiences.
Myth #2: Your Attachment Style Is Fixed for Life
Truth: Attachment styles are not fixed.
While attachment patterns often begin in early childhood, they continue to evolve across your lifespan. New relationships, corrective emotional experiences, therapy, and personal insight all influence attachment.
I often remind clients: if attachment could only be shaped in childhood, therapy wouldn’t work—and relationships wouldn’t change us. Yet they do, profoundly.
Your attachment style is adaptive, not permanent.
Myth #3: Attachment Is All-or-Nothing
Truth: Attachment exists on a spectrum.
People often label themselves as “anxious” or “avoidant” as if those are rigid boxes. In reality, attachment shows up in degrees and contexts.
You might lean avoidant under stress, but feel open and connected when you feel safe. Or you may experience anxiety only when separation or inconsistency is present.
Seeing attachment as a spectrum helps reduce shame and creates space for nuance—something many online explanations miss.
Myth #4: You Should Focus on Changing Your Attachment Style
Truth: Fighting your attachment style often makes things worse.
This is where I see many clients get stuck.
They might try to think their way out of anxiety, suppress their needs, or force closeness when their system feels unsafe. Others push themselves to be more independent while feeling deeply disconnected inside.
From an attachment-based perspective, your attachment style developed to protect you. When we try to override it without understanding it, we often reinforce the very patterns we want to escape.
Healing happens when we:
Understand the root of our attachment responses
Learn how our nervous system seeks safety
Build compassion toward the parts of us that adapted to survive
Rather than changing who you are, the goal is to create a better relationship with your attachment style.
Myth #5: Attachment Is Only Shaped by Childhood
Truth: Adult relationships matter, just as deeply.
Yes, early experiences influence attachment. However, attachment continues to be shaped through:
Romantic relationships
Friendships
Therapy relationships
Experiences of consistency, rupture, and repair
I often see clients who grew up with inconsistent or emotionally unavailable caregivers begin to experience safety for the first time in adulthood. These experiences matter. They rewire expectations and build new relational templates.
Attachment is not frozen in time, it is relational and ongoing.
Myth #6: You Must Be Secure to Have a Healthy Relationship
Truth: You don’t need to be “secure” to experience healthy love.
This myth creates unnecessary pressure and keeps people from dating, committing, or trusting connection.
Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens within safe, consistent relationships.
You don’t need to arrive fully healed to be worthy of love. Growth often occurs because of relationship, not before it.
Where Clients Often Get Stuck
Many people come to therapy wanting to get rid of their attachment style. Anxious clients want to stop needing reassurance. Avoidant clients want to stop shutting down. Disorganized clients want their reactions to make sense.
But attachment healing is not about erasing these patterns—it’s about understanding why they exist and helping your nervous system experience safety differently over time.
How Attachment Healing Actually Happens
Attachment styles are shaped through relationships. Therefore, they are also healed through safe, consistent relational experiences.
In my work with clients, healing happens through what I call profound witnessing—being seen, understood, and emotionally met in ways that were once missing.
Here’s how different attachment styles often show up, and what can support healing:
Anxious Attachment
Common experiences:
Strong need for reassurance and fear of abandonment
People-pleasing and difficulty expressing needs
Avoiding conflict to preserve connection
Prioritizing a partner’s needs over your own
These patterns often develop in environments where affection or availability was inconsistent.
Healing focus:
Building internal safety independent of a partner
Learning to express needs without self-abandonment
Understanding how reassurance-seeking can unintentionally create distance
Avoidant Attachment
Common experiences:
Intimacy feels overwhelming or unsafe
Strong self-reliance
Emotional shutdown during conflict
Difficulty with vulnerability despite wanting connection
Often rooted in early experiences where emotional needs were unmet or dismissed.
Healing focus:
Increasing tolerance for vulnerability
Understanding why closeness feels threatening
Understanding avoidance as a form of protection
Gradually allowing safe emotional connection
Disorganized Attachment
Common experiences:
Conflicting desires for closeness and distance
Intense fear of abandonment
Emotional dysregulation or dissociation under stress
Confusing or chaotic relationship dynamics
Often associated with early relationships that felt unsafe, unpredictable, or frightening.
Healing focus:
Building emotional regulation skills
Creating safety in both closeness and separation
Slowly developing trust in consistency
A Different Way to Think About Attachment
Attachment therapy is not about becoming someone else.
It’s about:
Understanding how your attachment developed
Accepting its protective role
Learning how to relate to yourself and others with more safety and compassion
When clients stop fighting their attachment style, real change begins.
Ready to Begin Attachment-Based Therapy?
If you’re tired of feeling stuck in the same relational patterns and want to work with—not against—your attachment style, I welcome you to reach out!
Book a consultation to learn more about my attachment-based therapy services and how healing from attachment wounds is possible through safe, supportive relationships.
