Kelsey Bartrum
Why do certain relationship patterns keep showing up in our lives, especially in moments of stress, conflict, or closeness? Attachment theory and family systems theory offer two powerful and complementary lenses for understanding why we relate the way we do and how our families shaped those patterns. This blog explores how attachment styles develop within family systems, how they show up in adult relationships, and most importantly how awareness can create space for change.
What Are Attachment Styles?
Attachment means seeking closeness in the face of stress. Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, describes how our early caregiving relationships shape our expectations of safety, connection, and emotional support. As children, we learn what to expect from others and what is expected of us. Over time, these experiences tend to organize into attachment styles.
Types of Attachment:
Secure Attachment
- Caregivers were generally responsive and emotionally available
- Comfort with closeness and independence
- Ability to express needs and tolerate conflict
Anxious (Preoccupied) Attachment
- Caregivers were inconsistent or unpredictable
- Heightened sensitivity to rejection or abandonment
- Strong desire for closeness paired with fear of losing it
Avoidant (Dismissive) Attachment
- Caregivers were emotionally unavailable, dismissive, or overemphasized independence
- Discomfort with emotional closeness
- Preference for self-reliance and emotional distance
Disorganized Attachment
- Caregivers were a source of both comfort and fear
- Confusion around closeness and safety
- Push and pull patterns in relationships
Importantly, attachment styles are adaptive responses, not character flaws. They develop to help us survive, protect us, and stay connected within our early environments.
What Is Family Systems Theory?
Family systems theory views the family as an emotional unit, where each person’s behavior affects and is affected by everyone else. From this perspective, symptoms or struggles don’t exist in isolation; they make sense within the relational patterns present in the system.
Key family systems concepts include:
- Roles: (e.g., caretaker, peacemaker, scapegoat, hero)
- Boundaries: Rigid, diffuse, or clear emotional boundaries
- Triangles: When tension between two people is managed by involving a third
- Emotional attunement or misattunement
- Intergenerational patterns: Repeated themes across generations
Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with you?” Family Systems Theory asks, “What happened in the system that made this response necessary?”
Where Attachment and Family Systems Meet
Attachment styles form within family systems. The emotional rules, roles, and boundaries of a family shape how attachment needs are expressed, met, ignored, or discouraged.
Here are a few common intersections:
Anxious Attachment in Enmeshed or Inconsistent Systems
- Child learns that connection requires vigilance or caretaking
- Emotional closeness is unpredictable or conditional
- Adult pattern: hyper-awareness of others’ moods, fear of abandonment, difficulty self-soothing
Avoidant Attachment in Emotionally Distant Systems
- Emotional needs minimized or dismissed
- Independence valued over vulnerability
- Adult pattern: discomfort with dependence, shutting down during conflict, difficulty asking for help
Disorganized Attachment in Chaotic or Unsafe Systems
- Caregivers move between care and threat
- Child cannot form a consistent strategy for connection
- Adult pattern: intense closeness followed by withdrawal, confusion around trust and safety
In this way, attachment styles can be understood as logical responses to family dynamics, not personal failures.
How These Patterns Show Up in Adult Relationships
Even when we logically know our partners, friends, and social community are not our parents, our nervous systems may react as if old rules still apply.
Common adult patterns include:
- Replaying familiar roles (caretaker, avoider, pursuer)
- Feeling “too much” or “not enough” in relationships
- Difficulty tolerating conflict or closeness
- Reactivity that feels bigger than the present moment
From a family systems lens, these moments often signal emotional activation, which means that past attachment wounds are being touched in the present.
The Role of Awareness (and Compassion)
Understanding attachment and family systems isn’t about assigning blame. It’s about developing context and compassion. Awareness reduces shame and makes new choices possible.
Awareness helps us:
- Pause before reacting
- Name what we’re actually feeling
- Separate past experiences from present relationships
- Practice new ways of asking for support or setting boundaries
Can Attachment Styles Change?
Yes, attachment styles can change.
Through:
- Secure relationships
- Therapy (especially attachment-informed, relational, or ACT-based approaches)
- Conscious boundary work
- Emotional regulation and self-compassion
People can develop earned secure attachment, a greater sense of safety and flexibility in relationships, even if early experiences were difficult. Family systems work supports this by helping individuals differentiate from old roles and respond intentionally rather than automatically.
Final Thoughts
Attachment styles and family systems offer a powerful reminder: our patterns are meaningful. They were shaped in relationship, and they can heal in relationship. Growth doesn’t require erasing the past, it asks us to understand it, honor what it protected, and gently practice something new. If you find yourself recognizing familiar patterns here, know that awareness is not the end of the journey but the beginning.
Nichols, P. M & Davis, S. D. (2021). Family therapy: Concepts and methods. Pearson
Education. ISBN 9780135843062.