Jennifer Beall, LCPC, LCADC
You’ve probably heard people talking about attachment styles and using the terms anxious, secure, avoidant, and disorganized. You’ve probably also heard people say that your attachment style was solely determined by your relationships with your parents, particularly your mother, when you were an infant, and that your attachment style, once established, is unchangeable.
As it turns out, reality might not be quite that straightforward.
A study by Keely Dugan, now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, showed that early childhood relationships with friends, in addition to relationships with parents, influence our attachment styles.
Psychiatrist Amir Levine, coauthor of a 2010 book titled Attached, asserts that, because people’s brains remain plastic throughout their lives, it’s possible to change our attachment styles by forming secure relationships. He uses the acronym CARRP (consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable) to describe the combination of qualities necessary to form (and maintain) secure relationships.[i]
A healthy relationship between a therapist and a client can fulfill the criteria for CARRP. One of the goals of therapy, of course, is to transition from the therapist providing the secure relationship to the client providing it for themselves. IFS therapy is ideally suited to this process.
If we examine attachment styles through an IFS lens, we can look at anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles as the results of interactions between a protector part and an exile. The exile wants to connect with another person, but the protector thinks it’s too dangerous and tries to stop the exile from doing so.
With an anxious attachment, the protector doesn’t want to allow the exile to connect with another person because they’re afraid the exile will be rejected or abandoned. The protector is not, however, completely successful in keeping the exile hidden.
If a person has an avoidant attachment with someone else, it’s likely that a protector part is successfully keeping the exile, who wants to be emotionally close to another person, firmly under wraps.
A person with a disorganized attachment likely swings back and forth between the two.
Let’s use the metaphor of young twins, with the older twin being the protector and the younger twin being the exile, to illustrate these.
Imagine that the twins are in their bedroom. The younger twin wants attention from their mother, so she starts to leave the room to go find her. The older twin is afraid their mom will get mad if her sister interrupts her while she’s in the middle of something, so she tries to block the door.
If a person has an anxious attachment to another person, the younger twin (the exile) often succeeds in getting out of the room, despite the efforts of her sister (the protector). In the case of an avoidant attachment, the older twin is able to keep the younger twin in the room; she may even be able to keep her away from the door entirely. If the attachment is disorganized, neither twin consistently wins the battle.
Why is it that these protector parts, who are barely older than the exiles they’re protecting, feel like they need to be the ones to keep the exiles safe? Because they don’t trust the Self (who, when the internal family system is working well, is like a healthy parent) to do it. When they took on their protective roles, the Self couldn’t keep them or the exiles safe, so they still don’t trust the Self, even years later.
There’s actually a good chance that your young protector parts don’t know how old you are. They probably think you’re still a child. Letting them know your actual age is a step towards establishing trust in the Self, because adults have more power than children do.
Successful IFS therapy often starts with your protectors learning to trust the therapist’s Self. Over time, your protectors will learn to trust your Self, as well. This is important, because you’re the only person who can be with your young parts 24/7! If you would like me to help you to establish trusting relationships between your Self and your parts, fill out a contact form, book a consultation, or call or text me at 410-888-0590.
[i] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/07/30/scientists-say-this-is-reason-some-relationships-flourish-others-flop/