Attachment Styles 101

Few things can activate us faster than feeling someone pull away—or feeling someone get a little too close. Those reactions can seem irrational in the moment, but they usually aren’t random. They may be part of an attachment style: a pattern we learned early on for managing closeness, distance, safety, and connection. In this episode of Right Here, hosts Christopher Mooney, LCSW and Kenyon Phillips, LMSW break down the four primary attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized—and explain where they come from, how they show up in adult relationships, and why they’re better understood as survival strategies than personality flaws. The conversation explores the classic anxious-avoidant dynamic, what happens in the body when our attachment system gets activated, and why one person may reach for reassurance at exactly the moment another person wants to retreat. Christopher and Kenyon also discuss how greater awareness, safer relationships, therapy, and small changes in how we respond can help us move toward a sense of earned security. You didn’t choose your attachment style. But you can change your relationship to it.