Preoccupied

Attachment
Self Report
Who are we? 1

Thank you for your interest in The Attachment Project

This document outlines the results of your online self report attachment quiz. Your personal report
can be found from page 4 onwards.

How and why did we start The

Attachment Project?
Our founder, Jock Gordon, sought answers for why
he struggled with relationships and that’s what
sparked his initial interest in Attachment Theory.
After reading a book about it, Jock searched for local
therapists that specialized in healing attachment
disturbances. However, Jock quickly realized that
there was a lack of therapists trained in this area.

Helping you break free from childhood

conditioning
People deserve to have relationships that work.

The Attachment Project came out of the need to

educate people about one of the most essential
foundations of psychology, attachment theory. In
populations of trauma such as war-torn Middle
Eastern countries or holocaust survivors, these
scars get passed onto the next generations like the
family jewels. People deserve to have relationships
that work and it’s our mission to end the suffering
caused from subconscious childhood conditioning.

Insensitive parenting often leads to the

development of an insecure attachment style in
children – anxious/preoccupied,
dismissive/avoidant, or disorganized.

Making the treatment of attachment

disorders accessible to everyone
We bring together several of the world’s leading
experts in the fields of attachment and trauma. Our
faculty offers a suite of knowledge that we’ve
packaged into affordable online courses. Combined,
our faculty have trained over 10,000 students.

Anxious / Preoccupied
Attachment Styles 2

Attachment Disturbance or Disorder

An attachment disturbance is characterized by a
series of behaviours that play out in certain
relationships/social situations that trigger your
attachment system (i.e. you are on a date with
someone who is avoidant; his or her dismissive
behavior activates your preoccupied attachment
style). An attachment disturbance is not something
you bring with you in every social context. Instead,
it’s what gets activated by particular triggers within
social interactions.

For example, an attachment disturbance is not

something you bring on a date; rather, it might get
activated during your date. In contrast, an
attachment disorder manifests as a pervasive way
of being and behaving across every relationship.

How do we form Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles develop in early childhood, within
the early relationship with parents or primary
caregivers.

Misattuned parenting often leads to the

development of an insecure attachment style in
children – anxious/preoccupied (referred to as
ambivalent in children), dismissive/avoidant
(referred to as avoidant in children), or disorganized.

Furthermore, studies have shown that attachment

patterns go down generational lines, which
indicates that insecure attachment styles in
parents lead to insecure attachments in their
children.

How does it impact our daily lives?

Our attachment styles shape the way we approach,
communicate in, and effect our relationships. It
might even predict the quality and duration of those
relationships.
The influence of attachment styles, however,
spreads beyond that. It impacts the way we perceive
ourselves, the way we cope with stress, the way we
interact in various social contexts (even at work),
and most importantly, the way we feel about
ourselves.

Anxious / Preoccupied
A World Wide Issue 3

Prevalence
Attachment disturbances are some of the biggest
challenges faced in psychotherapy today. Studies
indicate that more than 32% of US population suffer
from attachment disturbances. Similar rates were
reported across other western countries; while
extraordinarily high rates were reported in countries
that face instabilities or economic deprivation

Relationships
Research shows that more than 50% of those who
seek therapy do so because of relationship
problems rather than specific psychiatric
conditions. The most common source of such
struggles is attachment disturbances and/or core
conflict relationship themes (CCRT).

Mental Health
Attachment disturbances are the primary
component of complex trauma. People with an
insecure, especially disorganized, attachment style
are more likely to develop mental health issues,
such as substance abuse, depression, mixed or
borderline personality disorder, as well as complex
PTSD.

Our Mission
Attachment disturbances are an issue. But there is
a path to healing them and living a more fulfilling
life.

Our mission is to get you on that path and walk you

through it. We are here to guide you through
resolving attachment disturbances and developing
a secure attachment style.

Anxious / Preoccupied
Early Childhood Attachment 4

Why is secure attachment

so important?

Let’s have a look at the five primary conditions for secure attachment and the corresponding
benefits for self-development. Your responses from the self report on the five conditions of
secure attachment will give you an indication of your early childhood experience from your
earliest childhood memories.

Your Results

Mom or Caregiver #1 Father or Caregiver #1

Protection: 4 Expressed Delight: 6 Protection: 7 Expressed Delight: 4

Attunement: 3 Encouragement: 2 Attunement: 1 Encouragement: 6

Soothing & Average: Soothing & Average:

Reassurance: 1 3.6666666666667 Reassurance:1 4.5555555555556

Result Result

Moderately Insecure Moderately Secure

Anxious / Preoccupied
The Five Conditions 5

1. Felt Safety
As a parent, first and foremost, you want your child to feel protected. If your child feels protected, it feels safe. For
the infant and toddler, safety means closeness to the mother, as she is the source of food, warmth, and protection.
Danger means separation from her, beyond the comfort zone.
The attuned mother is fiercely protective but not overwhelming, intrusive, or ignoring. She gives her child space
and freedom to explore the world, but stays close enough, so that the child has a felt sense of safety.

When the infant strays too far and becomes frightened, they know that they can run to her and envelop her in a
warm, protective embrace, secured against the world. This conveys a message: "You are safe. You are loved. You
are loveable."

2. Feeling Seen and Known / 3. Felt Comfort / Soothing

Attunement and Reassurance
Attuned parents can read their baby’s cues The attuned parent’s arms are open and inviting.
accurately and respond to his or her needs. Attuned When the child is distressed, the caregiver
responses give infants information about the reassures and soothes the child back to a calm
effects of their behavior. Children learn that when emotional state.
they signal a need, they can expect a prompt,
predictable, and accurate response. The result is a Helping the child manage his or her distress and
feeling of control over their lives, starting early on: "I frustrations will help him or her develop an internal
signal that I’m hungry, and I get fed; I signal that I’m model of being soothed and comforted. Over time,
tired, and my mother rocks me to sleep." the child will develop the ability to manage his or
her own distress and self-soothing.

4. Feeling Valued / Expressed 5. Felt Support for Best Self

Delight Children need to feel supported and encouraged to
explore their world joyfully and safely. Parents who
Feeling valued begins in infancy and is the champion this have a deep faith in their child and
foundation of healthy self-esteem development. always provide him or her with a safety net. Deeply
Parents who raise children with a healthy self- involved in their child’s life, parents give the child
esteem repeatedly express their joy about who the space and thrust him or her towards autonomy and
child is rather than what the child does. They focus independence. This sense of security allows the
on Being rather than Doing. Such parents exhibit child to explore, discover, succeed, and fail; and
"expressed delight" to the child and about almost through such exploration, the child develops a good,
everything the child does. They focus not on the autonomous, strong, and unique sense of self.
chores, but on the joys of parenting.

Special Thanks to R. Chris Frayley from the University of Illinois for making the use of this test possible and for his contribution to
the Attachment field.

1) This test is used with permission from R. Chris Fraley from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Experiences in
Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) questionnaire is a revised version of Brennan, Clark, and Shaver's (1998) Experiences in Close
Relationships (ECR) questionnaire. The items on the ECR-R were selected using techniques based on Item Response Theory, but
were selected from the same item pool as those from the ECR. Both the ECR and the ECR-R are designed to assess individual
differences with respect to attachment-related anxiety (i.e., the extent to which people are insecure vs. secure about the
availability and responsiveness of romantic partners) and attachment-related avoidance (i.e., the extent to which people are
uncomfortable being close to others vs. secure depending on others).

Anxious / Preoccupied
Profile: Anxious / Preoccupied 6

Anxious / Preoccupied is one of the three insecure attachment styles

Characteristics of Anxious/Preoccupied
Attachment Style are:
You lack a strong sense of self and tend to put others first. You take care
of others and place more importance on them and their needs, instead of
on yourself and your needs.

You have a hard time being alone; you crave relationships and intimacy.

You have a relatively low self-esteem and seek approval and reassurance
from others – you need them to validate your own worth. Therefore, you
often crave attention and try to impress people.

When it comes to relationships, you often exhibit clingy and needy

behaviors. You seek attention and intimacy and can become too
demanding. On the other hand, you are sensitive towards your partner’s
needs and preoccupied with taking care of them, which might cause your
partner to feel smothered or suffocated by you.

You fear that you will scare people away and that they will reject, criticize,
or abandon you. You can get extremely upset when you receive
disapproval (in any form). When your partner is unavailable and spends
time away from your relationship, you can become jealous, frustrated, Score | Anxiety: 4.72 | Avoidance: 3.61
and resentful.

You overanalyze and worry excessively about relationships. At the same

time, you easily ignore or misread signs of relational issues.

How does your attachment style develop?

The anxious/preoccupied attachment style (referred to as ambivalent in
children) is created in the first 18 months of life, in a dyad with the primary
caregiver, usually the mother or the father. The roots of this attachment style are
based in perceived neglect: the parents did not necessarily neglect the child
actively, but the child perceived that his or her needs were not met.

For example, a child has an emotional need (knows their mom is going away for
a few days, so they get clingy and are crying), the mother misreads the child’s
behavior as attention seeking and punishes her child instead of soothing and
reassuring them that she will return and that everything will be okay. This
misattunement causes the child to feel and internalize that “my needs are not
going to be met by the other person, so I must try harder; I must keep trying to
get my needs across and get the other person to take care of me.”

An important aspect of the anxious/preoccupied attachment is that individuals

with this style were not neglected only in their early childhood. As they grow up,
they start to neglect themselves. They start to put the needs of others first,
expecting that if they are nice and caring to someone, he or she will like them
and take care of them in return.

This turns into preoccupation with the needs of others and leads to lack of self-
definition and sense of self. People with an anxious/preoccupied attachment
style might not have an idea of who they are in a relationship. They adapt to
whatever the other person wants. They self-sacrifice chronically, lack boundaries
for self-care, and can become caretakers of others.

Anxious / Preoccupied
Profile: Anxious / Preoccupied 7

What can you do?

By now, you have probably found out whether the self-
assessment test was right and whether you have an
anxious/preoccupied attachment style.

If you have an anxious/preoccupied attachment style, the

most important thing you can do is to start working on self-
development. Focus more on what you want and like;
explore who you are.

Many times, your thoughts will come in to remind you that

"you're not that important; everybody else is more important;
and no one's going to love you." You can start identifying
those thoughts and fears and start thinking about yourself
in a positive way.

Another very important aspect in healing an

anxious/preoccupied attachment style is to try to stay in
the moment.

People with this attachment style tend to think about the

past and ruminate about it, rather than focus on what's
going on in the present – right now. The mind is always
active. You need to slow the mind down; you need to break
the old patterns and open up to new experiences. The goal
is to get out of the habit of linking meanings to everything
that people say and do – a habit that needs to be corrected
and managed better.

We can help!
Having an anxious/preoccupied attachment style can be stressful. Especially if you
constantly worry, overanalyze your relationships, and put others’, instead of your own needs
first.
Even with therapy, healing your attachment style can be a challenge. For this reason, we have
developed a program of intensives, as well as group processes, which are designed to be
delivered in an online setting and in a person-to-person basis.
In this supportive, trusting, and safe environment, you will learn about how your attachment
style affects your day to day life, the most effective ways of coping with your attachment
difficulties, and also how to break down any barriers which may be preventing you from
making positive and lasting changes in your personal and intimate relationships.

Apply Now

Curious to learn more? Visit us on

Join us and start the path to healing today!

Anxious / Preoccupied
 SELF REPORT
COPYRIGHT 2019-2020 MINDONLY PTY LTD.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.