SGR 090: What Your Attachment Style Means with Katie Miles, LMFT

The Simply Great Relationships Podcast: Love | Marriage | Sex | Communication | Dating Advice

Do you know what your attachment style is?

Each of us develops an attachment style early in life - it’s solidified by about age 3 - that we take with us into future relationships. While we can’t change our style, we can use it to provide context for our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in relationships. The more we know, the more we can adapt to healthier ways of being with our partner.

There are four common styles:

- Secure attachment
- Anxious attachment
- Avoidant attachment
- Anxious-avoidant attachment

Interestingly, many anxiously attached individuals partner with avoidantly attached individuals. This dynamic sets the stage for a pursuer-distancer dance (think: one person is highly focused on and sensitive to their partner’s feelings towards them, while the other is highly focused on creating space and not getting too attached) that lends itself to chronic conflict and emotional flooding

In this week’s episode, we’re chatting in depth with Katie Miles, LMFT about how to identify your own attachment style, what can happen when you and your partner have different attachment styles, and strategies for creating more security for yourself and your relationship.

Katie Miles is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and co-founder of Habitbetter, an online institute that guides you to a more fulfilling life through the power of habits. She completed her clinical training at one of the top 10 medical centers in the U.S., where she worked for three more years with a variety of populations. Katie worked alongside and taught evidence-based practices to psychiatry and psychology residents, medical students, and other clinical professionals. As a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, she works with individuals, couples, and families to manage and overcome their struggles, heal and strengthen relationships, move through pain and suffering, and find growth and fulfillment. Katie genuinely loves being a therapist and getting to witness humans do the most amazing things!

Katie was kind enough to offer a special discount to our listeners! Use the code SIMPLYGREATHABITS2020 to get 50% off her relationship course. You can access her course here: Healthy Relationships Crash Course

You can find Katie on Instagram @connectionwithkatie or at Katie Miles, LMFT.