What is Attachment Theory?
Attachment Theory is the study of how humans form bonds in intimate relationships. The term was initially coined by the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby at the beginning of the 20th Century, and described how parents and children bonds. He and his assistant, Mary Ainsworth, created a now famous test called the Strange Situation Test that showed three main ways or styles” in which children attach to their parents. Later on, researchers Phillip Shaver and Cindy Hazan took Bowlby and Ainsworth’s findings and posited that the attachment styles they discovered (Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Fearful Avoidant or Disorganized Attachment) extend to our adult relationships as well.