How you connect, seek closeness, and handle distance
Modeled on the two dimensions attachment research measures
How you love as an adult, what you reach for, what you brace against, how you act when a bond feels shaky, took shape long before you had words for it. Your earliest relationships taught you what to expect when you needed someone, and those lessons tend to stick.
The good news: they're not fixed. Attachment is learned, which means it can be re-learned. Seeing your pattern clearly is where that starts.
Researchers track these patterns along two lines. One is avoidance: how much you pull back from closeness and rely only on yourself. The other is anxiety: how much you fear being left or not truly wanted. Where you land on each line is what this reflection maps.
Before you begin
Answer for how you generally are in close relationships, not how you wish you were, and not one specific relationship on one specific day. There are no right answers. This is a short educational reflection, not a formal assessment, if you want the rigorous version, a clinician can walk you through the full questionnaire.
The Questions · Part One
How much does each fit you?
Go with your gut. Rate how true each statement is for you in close relationships, generally.
The Questions · Part Two
A few more
Same as before. How true is each one for you?
The Map
Where you land
Your answers place you on the two lines. Down-and-left is where secure attachment sits: comfortable with closeness, not overly worried about it. The other three corners are simply the directions people drift, each one an understandable adaptation, not a flaw.
What It Means
Your pattern
Hold this lightly
Most people are a blend, and lean different ways in different relationships. A style is a tendency, not a cage. The direction that matters is toward security, and every secure relationship you build, including the one with a good therapist, nudges you that way. Attachment is learned, which means it can be re-learned.
If you're a parent
These patterns can ripple down through families: we often pass along some of what we were shown. But the link is real, not fixed. Plenty of people raise securely attached children after an insecure start of their own. Seeing your own pattern clearly is the first move toward handing down something different.
This exercise is an educational reflection, not a diagnosis, a validated psychological test, or a substitute for therapy. Your responses are saved only in this browser on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere, and no one else can see them. Clearing your results removes them from this device.
