What is the Connection Between Attachment Styles and Sexual Satisfaction?

In Dr. Emily Nagoski's book, Come As You Are, she discusses the connection between attachment styles and sexual satisfaction (see my article: Understanding the Impact of Early Attachment on Adult Relationships).

How Attachment Styles Develop Early in Life

Your attachment style is developed early in life with your primary caregiver (usually a mother). Attachment styles are broadly divided into secure and insecure attachment, and 50-60% of people develop secure attachment early in life.

Early Attachment Between Mother and Baby

People who develop a secure attachment style early in life might not have received "perfect" caregiving (nothing is perfect), but it was good enough to help them to grow up to be securely attached individuals.

Everyone else, who didn't develop a secure attachment style, is somewhere on the insecure attachment spectrum between anxious and avoidant attachment (see my articles: How an Avoidant Attachment Style Can Affect Your Sex Life and How an Anxious Attachment Style Can Affect Your Sex Life).

There is also an attachment style called disorganized attachment which is a combination of anxious and avoidant due to early experiences with highly inconsistent caregiving.  But for our purposes, I'll simplify this discussion by focusing on anxious and avoidant attachment.

Before I go further, I'd like to emphasize that if you have an insecure attachment style (either anxious or avoidant), you're not doomed to live with it for the rest of your life.  You can develop a secure attachment style by working on your early attachment wounds in therapy or over time by getting into a healthy relationship with someone who has a secure attachment style. 

Attachment Styles in Relationships

Attachment styles developed early in life have an impact on adult relationships and sexual well-being.  

Based on Dr. Nagoski's book, let's compare attachment styles in relationships in terms of emotional vulnerability, emotional security and an ability to allow a partner to meet emotional needs (see my articles:  Emotional Vulnerability as a Pathway to Greater Intimacy in a Relationship and Fear of Emotional Vulnerability).

Comfort With Showing Emotional Vulnerability:
Secure Attachment:       "I'm comfortable sharing my thoughts and feelings with my partner."

Anxious Attachment:    "If I share my thoughts and feelings with my partner, I'm afraid I'll lose my partner's love."

Avoidant Attachment:    "I prefer not to share my deepest emotions with my partner."

Feeling Emotionally Secure in a Relationship:

Secure Attachment:        "I hardly ever worry about my partner leaving me."

Anxious Attachment:     "I tend to worry that my partner will leave me."

Avoidant Attachment:    "I have a hard time relying emotionally on a romantic partner."

Ability to Turn to a Partner to Get Emotional Needs Met:

Secure Attachment:       "I feel comfortable turning to my partner in times of need."

Anxious Attachment:    "I worry I care more about my partner than they care about me."

Avoidant Attachment:    "I prefer not to get too close to a romantic partner."

Secure Attachment Style and Sexual Satisfaction

According to Dr. Nagoski, a 2012 sex research study revealed that people with secure attachment styles tend to have a healthier and a more satisfying sex life.

Secure Attachment and Sexual Satisfaction

In addition they tend to have:

• More positive feelings about sex
• More frequent sex
• Better experiences with sexual arousal and more frequent orgasms
• Better communication with their partner about sex
• The ability to give and receive sexual consent
• The ability to practice safer sex (such as using contraceptives)
• The ability to enjoy sex more
• The ability to be attentive to their partner's needs
• The ability to comfortably link sex and love
• The ability to have sex in a loving committed relationship
• More sexual self confidence (see my article: What is Sexual Self Esteem?)

Insecure/Anxious Attachment Style and Sexual Satisfaction

Compared to people with a secure attachment style, people with an anxious attachment style tend to have more anxiety-driven sex with their partner through solace sex, which is an emotionally unhealthy way to have sex and can make sex less satisfying (see my article: Anxious Attachment and Solace Sex to understand the concept of solace sex).  

Anxious Attachment and Sexual Satisfaction

In addition, they tend to: 

• Worry about sex
• Equate the quality of their sex life with the quality of the relationship
• Be more likely to experience pain during sexual intercourse (referring to women)
• Be more likely to experience erectile dysfunction (referring to men)
• Be less likely to practice safe sex (use of condoms)
• Be more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs before sex
• Have more sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies
• Be more likely to get involved in coercive relationships where they are emotionally, physically and/or sexually abused or bullied

Insecure/Avoidant Attachment Style and Sexual Satisfaction

Compared to people with a secure attachment style, people with an avoidant attachment style tend to have less satisfying sexual relationships.

Avoidant Attachment and Sexual Satisfaction

They tend to:

• Begin having sex later in life
• Have less frequent sex with less non-penetrative sex (e.g., oral sex)
• Have positive attitudes about casual sex outside a committed relationship so they have more one-night stands
• Be more likely to have sex just to fit in with social expectations rather than because they really want to have sex
• Experience sex as less connected to their personal lives and relationships

Conclusion

Overall, people with a secure attachment style tend to experience more relationship and sexual satisfaction.

In order to have more sexually satisfying relationships and overall sexual well-being, people with insecure attachment styles (whether it is anxious or avoidant) need to work on overcoming their early emotional attachment wounds so they can develop a secure attachment style.

Getting Help in Sex Therapy

Sex therapy is a form of talk therapy (see my articles: What is Sex Therapy?).

Getting Help in Sex Therapy

There is no physical exam, no nudity or sex during sex therapy sessions (see my article: What Are the Most Common Misconceptions About Sex Therapy?)

As I mentioned earlier, people who have an insecure attachment style, whether it's anxious or avoidant, can learn to develop a secure attachment style by working on their unresolved emotional attachment wounds in therapy (see my article: Developing a Secure Attachment Style: What is Earned Secure Attachment?).

You deserve to be in a fulfilling relationship with good sex.

If you would like to improve the quality of your relationship and sexual-welling, seek help from a skilled sex therapist who is also a trauma therapist.  

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a sex positive trauma and sex therapist, I have helped many clients to have better relationships and improve their overall sexual well-being (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

          

Developing a Secure Attachment Style: What is Earned Secure Attachment?

In a prior article, Relationships: What is Your Attachment Style?, I discussed attachment styles and how these styles affect relationships.  I also mentioned that if you have an insecure attachment, either anxious or avoidant, it's possible to change and develop an earned secure attachment style (ESA), which is the focus of this article.

What is Earned Secure Attachment?

What is Earned Attachment Style (ESA)?

As I mentioned in my prior article, people who have an insecure attachment style experienced insecure parenting when they were growing up.  Often this is intergenerational with one generation after another experiencing insecure parenting for various reasons.

In the past, it was thought that if you developed an insecure attachment style that you couldn't change, but we now know that the human capacity to grow and change enables people to develop an earned secure attachment style.  

How Can You Develop an ESA?

There are two main ways that you can develop an ESA:

• Attending Psychotherapy: People who develop an insecure attachment style can develop an ESA by attending psychotherapy to work on unresolved childhood attachment issues to learn to develop a safe and trusting relationship with their therapist.  These individuals learn to make sense of their childhood history and work through their unresolved childhood trauma.  

• Developing Trusting Relationships: Experiencing a loving and trusting relationship in a friendship or with a romantic partner is another way to develop ESA.  Loving and trusting relationships provides people with an insecure attachment style with new experiences within the security of these relationships.

Making Sense of Your Early Attachment Style

One of the hallmarks of ESA is the ability to tell a coherent narrative about your early history without defensiveness. This might sound strange--unless you have heard someone with insecure attachment talk about their childhood attachment history.  

For instance, someone with an insecure attachment style often gives a disjointed narrative about their childhood experiences.  These individuals need extensive prompting to get a full narrative or there are big gaps in the narrative because their memories of childhood are fuzzy or whole parts are missing.  

Sometimes people with an insecure attachment style, who have problems recalling childhood memories or have big gaps in their recall, will start to talk about their childhood and then defensively deflect the conversation to talk about something else that is unrelated ("I had an okay childhood, but last night I watched a horror movie").

Another more subtle example which is common with people who have insecure attachment would be, "I was often alone and afraid a lot as a child, BUT I grew up to be a stronger person."  In this example the person is defensively downplaying his or her childhood history because it remains unresolved and there is often shame about it.

Compare the above statement from a person with insecure attachment to this statement from a person with ESA, "I was often alone and afraid a lot as a child AND I know that part of that was due to the struggles my family was going through at the time."  

This statement by someone with ESA shows an ability to reflect upon their childhood history without being defensive or deflecting from the topic.

From Insecure Attachment to Earned Secure Attachment

When you move from insecure attachment to ESA, you develop a balanced and mindful approach to your childhood history without being defensive about it.

This change doesn't happen overnight because early childhood experiences have a profound effect on how you feel about yourself and others.  You might not trust others at first, including your therapist, but over time you can learn to feel confident in yourself and trusting of others who are worthy of your trust.

What Are the Signs of ESA?

• An overall positive view of yourself and others
• A belief that you are a worthy individual
• An ease and comfort with being close to others 
• A positive regard for people who have demonstrated themselves to be trustworthy and dependable in your life
• An ability to depend on others and have others depend on you in a healthy way
• An ability and comfort with being alone sometimes without the need to always have someone around
• A comfort with others in your life who might need their own alone time
• An ability to balance emotional intimacy and independence
• An ability to tell a coherent narrative about your early attachment experiences (see above, Making Sense of Your Early Attachment Style)

Getting Help in Therapy

Not everyone is lucky enough to form trusting friendships and romantic relationships that help them to go from insecure to earned secure attachment.  

Part of the problem is that, due to unresolved traumatic childhood experiences of abuse or emotional neglect, people often make poor choices with regard to their relationships or don't trust people who are actually trustworthy.

If you're struggling with an insecure (anxious or avoidant) attachment style, you could benefit from working with a psychotherapist who has the expertise to help you develop an ESA.

Rather than struggling on your own, you can seek help from a licensed mental health professional so that you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.