You are a secure base when you are emotionally available, sensitive, responsive and helpful. Your child’s fear and stress are reduced. She learns to associate closeness with safety and security. This is the essence of secure attachment.

Secure attachment is classified by children who show some distress when their caregiver leaves but are able to compose themselves quickly when the caregiver returns. These children react similarly to a stranger as do they with their caregiver. This attachment is often associated with abusive situations.

Bowlby suggested that a child would initially form only one primary attachment (monotropy) and that the attachment figure acted as a secure base for exploring the world. The attachment relationship acts as a prototype for all future social relationships so disrupting it can have severe consequences.

Safe haven: Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat. Secure base: The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.

Characteristics of Attachment There are four basic characteristics that basically give us a clear view of what attachment really is. They include a safe heaven, a secure base, proximity maintenance and separation distress. These four attributes are very evident in the relationship between a child and his caregiver.

Secure attachment is the most common type of attachment relationship seen throughout societies. Securely attached children are best able to explore when they have the knowledge of a secure base (their caregiver) to return to in times of need.

A secure base is provided through a relationship with one or more sensitive and responsive attachment figures who meet the child’s needs and to whom the child can turn as a safe haven, when upset or anxious.

People with a secure attachment style tend to be warm, loving, comfortable with closeness and don’t worry too much about the status of the relationship. Those with an anxious attachment style crave intimacy but require more reassurance than those with other styles.

Here’s a look at some other hallmarks of healthy relationships.

• Open communication.
• Trust.
• A sense of yourself as a separate person.
• Curiosity.
• Time apart.
• Playfulness or lightheartedness.
• Physical intimacy.
• Teamwork.

Love Avoidants evade intensity within the relationship by creating intensity in activities (usually addictions) outside the relationship. Love Avoidants avoid being known in the relationship in order to protect themselves from engulfment and control by the other person.

Someone with a secure attachment style is comfortable expressing their affection for their partner. They do not hesitate to set boundaries, and they can also accept rejection and disappointment.

How to rewire your attachment style to be more secure:

1. Keep developing the things you are already good at and the things you love, so you spend more time in flow, or immersion in your loved pursuits, living passionately.
2. Take some measured risks (nothing dangerous), but try things that push you out of your comfort zone.

10 Signs You’re In The Right Relationship

• You Just Know. We know, we know—this sentiment was just roasted in the paragraph above.
• You Have Plenty in Common with Your S.O. …
• 3. …
• You’re Able to Spend Time Apart.
• You Fight Right.
• You Understand Each Other’s Love Language.
• You Have Similar Values.
• Communication is Great But Not Always Needed.

Adults are described as having four attachment styles: Secure, Anxious-attachment/preoccupied, Dismissive/avoidant, and Fearful-avoidant. The secure attachment style in adults corresponds to the secure attachment style in children.