Key Takeaways
- Fearful avoidant attachment involves craving closeness while fearing rejection, leading to a push-pull dynamic in relationships.
- It’s caused by inconsistent caregiving or trauma in early childhood that shapes how a person connects with others.
- Therapy, self-awareness, and supportive relationships can help people build emotional security and healthier connections.
Fearful avoidant attachment is one of the four adult attachment styles. It is characterized by a strong desire for closeness and a fear of intimacy. People with this style want to have deep, meaningful relationships but struggle to trust others and fear being hurt or rejected. This leads people with a fearful avoidant attachment to avoid the very relationships they crave.
Verywell / Theresa Chiechi
What Causes a Fearful Avoidant Attachment Style?
Fearful avoidant attachment is often caused by childhood in which at least one parent or caregiver exhibits frightening behavior. This frightening behavior can range from overt abuse to more subtle signs of anxiety or uncertainty, but the result is the same.
When the child approaches the parent for comfort, the parent is unable to provide it. Because the caregiver does not offer a secure base and may function as a source of distress for the child, the child’s instinct will be to approach the caregiver for comfort, but they will then withdraw.
People who carry this fearful avoidant attachment into adulthood will exhibit the same impulse to approach and then withdraw in their interpersonal relationships with friends, spouses, partners, colleagues, and children.
Characteristics of Fearful Avoidant Attachment
Individuals with fearful avoidant attachment are a combination of the preoccupied and dismissive-avoidant styles of insecure attachment.
- Low self-esteem: They believe they are unlovable and also lack trust in others to support and accept them.
- Fear of rejection: Because they think others will eventually reject them, they withdraw from relationships.
- Craving and avoidance of intimacy: At the same time, however, they strongly desire intimacy because the acceptance of others helps them feel better about themselves. People with a fearful avoidant attachment style want love, closeness, and connection, yet they fear and avoid it.
- Push-pull dynamics: Fearful avoidant attachment can lead to behavior that may be confusing to friends and romantic partners. People with this style may encourage closeness at first and then emotionally or physically retreat when they start to feel vulnerable in the relationship.
One study found that when people with a fearful avoidant attachment style are exposed to emotional stimuli, they tend to respond with avoidance.
Impact on Relationships
- Avoidance: People with fearful avoidant attachment want to form strong interpersonal bonds but also want to protect themselves from rejection. This leads them to seek out relationships but avoid true commitment or to leave as soon as a relationship gets too intimate.
- Risk for depression and anxiety: The negative view of the self and the self-criticism that accompanies fearful avoidant attachment may leave people with this attachment style vulnerable to depression, social anxiety, and negative emotions, in general.
- Effects on sexual behavior: Meanwhile, another study found that, in comparison to other attachment styles, fearful avoidant attachment is predictive of more sexual partners in one’s lifetime and a greater tendency to consent to sex even when it’s unwanted.
- Chronic pain: Research also suggests that people with a fearful avoidant attachment style may also be affected by health issues, including chronic pain.
However, the effects of fearful avoidant attachment can vary depending on your coping style and the support you receive. Becoming more aware of your attachment style may help you learn to cope with it more effectively
Treatment for Fearful Avoidant Attachment
It can be helpful to discuss your challenges with fearful avoidant attachment with a counselor or therapist. Treatment options that can help include:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): This type of therapy can help you address the automatic negative thoughts and beliefs that play a role in your fears of intimacy and relationships.
- Attachment-based therapy: This type of therapy explores your early experiences and helps you develop healthier ways to cope with your fears and anxieties.
- Experiential therapies: These treatments can foster greater trust in others and improve your emotional regulation skills.
Fearful avoidant attachment may impede treatment because people with this attachment style are prone to avoiding intimacy, even with a therapist.
As a result, it’s important to seek out a therapist who has experience successfully treating people with fearful avoidant attachment and therefore knows how to overcome this potential therapeutic hurdle.
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How to Cope and Feel More Secure
There are ways to address the challenges associated with a fearful avoidant attachment style. These include:
- Learn about your attachment style: If you relate to the fearful avoidant attachment, learning more about it can help you understand the thoughts and patterns that affect your relationships. Keep in mind that each of the adult attachment categories is broad and may not perfectly capture your experiences.
- Set and communicate boundaries in relationships: If you fear that sharing too much about yourself in a relationship too quickly will lead you to withdraw, slow things down. Let your partner know that you need time to open up and share what makes you anxious or what helps you feel secure, so you can build trust gradually.
- Be kind to yourself: Individuals with fearful avoidant attachment tend to think negatively about themselves and often exhibit self-criticism. It can help you learn to talk to yourself like you would a friend. This enables you to be more compassionate and understanding of yourself while shutting down self-criticism.
Take the Attachment Styles Quiz
If you’re unsure about your attachment style, this fast and free quiz can help you identify what your thoughts and behaviors may say about your attachment.
This attachment styles quiz was reviewed by David Susman, PhD.
Understanding Adult Attachment Styles
Psychologist John Bowlby introduced attachment theory in 1969 to explain the bonds infants develop with their caregivers. He suggested that caregivers who are responsive and available will instill a sense of security in their babies, enabling the child to explore the world confidently. In the 1970s, Bowlby’s colleague Mary Ainsworth expanded on his ideas by identifying three specific attachment patterns in infants, which accounted for both secure and insecure attachment styles.
In 1990, Bartholomew and Horowitz proposed a four-category model of adult attachment styles that introduced the idea of fearful avoidant attachment.
Bartholomew and Horowitz’s categories were based on the combination of two working models: on the one hand, whether or not a person feels worthy of love and support, and on the other hand, whether or not one feels other people are trustworthy and available.
This created four adult attachment styles: one secure style and three insecure styles.
- Fearful avoidant: Individuals with this attachment style crave closeness but fear being hurt and rejected, often leading to a pattern of avoidance. They desire intimacy but pull away when others get close, creating a confusing push-pull dynamic in their relationships.
- Preoccupied: Those with preoccupied attachment believe they aren’t worthy of love, but generally feel others are supportive and accepting. Consequently, these individuals seek validation and self-acceptance through their relationships with others.
- Dismissive avoidant: People with dismissive avoidant attachment have a sense of their own self-worth but don’t trust other people. This makes them dismissive of the value of intimacy, leading them to avoid close relationships.
- Secure: People who have a secure attachment style believe they are worthy of love and that other people are trustworthy and responsive. As a result, they are comfortable with intimacy but are also secure enough to be on their own.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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Dan O, Zreik G, Raz S. The relationship between individuals with fearful-avoidant adult attachment orientation and early neural responses to emotional content: An event-related potentials (ERPs) study. Neuropsychology. 2020;34(2):155-167. doi:10.1037/neu0000600
Favez N, Tissot H. Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: A Specific Impact on Sexuality? J Sex Marital Ther. 2019;45(6):510-523. doi:10.1080/0092623x.2019.1566946
Stamp GE, Iacovides S, Wadley AL. A fearful adult attachment style is associated with double the presence of chronic pain compared to secure attachment: A national survey of a South African population. Br J Health Psychol. 2025;30(4):e70024. doi:10.1111/bjhp.70024
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Diamond G, Diamond GM, Levy S. Attachment-based family therapy: Theory, clinical model, outcomes, and process research. J Affect Disord. 2021;294:286-295. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2021.07.005
Egozi S, Talia A, Wiseman H, Tishby O. The experience of closeness and distance in the therapeutic relationship of patients with different attachment classifications: an exploration of prototypical cases. Front Psychiatry. 2023;14:1029783. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1029783
Bartholomew K, Horowitz LM. Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1991;61(2):226-244. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.226
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