Relationships can bring out the best in us, but they can also evoke some of our deepest fears. If you’ve ever found yourself caught in a spiral of overanalyzing your partner’s feelings or feeling uneasy during time apart, you may be experiencing what’s known as an anxious attachment style.
People with anxious attachment may experience cycles of overthinking, fear of abandonment, and difficulty trusting that love can be stable. Living in this constant state of emotional alertness can be exhausting, often taking a toll on both mental health and emotional regulation.
This is where cognitive therapy—particularly therapy for cognitive behavioral approaches—offers hope. By working with a CBT therapist, clients can gain practical tools to regulate emotions, challenge anxious thoughts, and build healthier relationships. If these patterns resonate with you, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in NYC can offer an effective pathway toward creating a more peaceful, grounded life.
Understanding Anxious Attachment
Attachment theory explores how the early emotional bonds between infants and their caregivers shape the way we relate to others throughout life. When caregivers respond consistently and sensitively, children usually develop secure attachment, feeling confident that their cries for help will be answered. However, when caregiving is unreliable or unavailable, children may develop insecure attachment.
One type of insecure attachment is anxious attachment, which is often rooted in early relational experiences of inconsistent caregiving or unmet emotional needs. In adult relationships, this can appear as a heightened fear of abandonment, a strong need for reassurance, and hypervigilance toward relational cues.
These patterns can create cycles of conflict or codependency that strain intimacy and connection. On an individual level, anxious attachment is also linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression, as well as emotional dysregulation. Over time, this emotional instability can leave you feeling drained, insecure, and disconnected from your sense of self.
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, evidence-based form of talk therapy that focuses on present-day challenges and practical solutions. This style of therapy focuses on understanding the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors— an essential framework also used in Depression Therapy and Anxiety Therapy. Therapists who practice therapy for cognitive behavioral approaches aim to help clients identify and challenge distorted thinking patterns to change emotional and behavioral responses.
CBT is often integrated with Dialectical Therapy for individuals who require stronger emotional regulation support, especially those with co-occurring mood or anxiety disorders. Cognitive therapy has been widely researched and proven to be highly effective for treating anxiety-related issues, including generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and social anxiety. Its emphasis on skill-building and problem-solving makes it a powerful tool for clients seeking lasting change.
Identifying Negative Core Beliefs Linked to Anxious Attachment
Anxious attachment is typically fueled by deeply ingrained core beliefs, many of which remain unconscious until explored in therapy. These beliefs often emerge from early relational experiences, where unaddressed needs may have reinforced messages like “I’m unlovable” or “People will leave me.” CBT helps clients gain awareness of this by helping them examine automatic thoughts that occur on a daily basis and tracing them back to the core beliefs that fuel their anxiety.
Negative core beliefs can lead to biases in thought that fuel our distress and increase our sense of insecurity. Common cognitive distortions for those with anxious attachment include:
- Catastrophizing: Assuming the worst outcome (“My partner hasn’t texted back, they must want to leave me”).
- Mind reading: Believing you know the thoughts and beliefs of others without adequate evidence (“They are being more quiet than usual, they must be mad at me”).
- Overgeneralization: Making broad interpretations from a single or few events (“I made a mistake and hurt my partner. I must always be a terrible partner”).
Challenging and Restructuring Unhelpful Thinking Patterns
So, what can we do with these cognitive distortions once we identify them? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) equips clients with tools to examine the evidence behind anxious thoughts and replace them with more balanced, realistic perspectives.
Specific techniques include:
- Thought records: A practical tool for clients to record their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in reaction to specific events in their lives. This technique helps clients to gain awareness of the cognitive distortions that previously went unnoticed. With practice, identifying unhelpful thought patterns can become more automatic and immediate.
- Cognitive restructuring: A broad term to describe the process of challenging distorted thoughts and shifting them to become more helpful. Questions such as “What is the evidence for this thought?” and “Am I basing my thought on facts or feelings?” can be helpful in adding more realistic perspectives into your thinking.
Someone who experiences anxious attachment in their relationship may have a tendency to assume rejection or abandonment. CBT encourages exploration of alternative perspectives and selecting a more grounded response. For example, rather than assuming “My partner hasn’t texted back, so they must not care about me,” you might choose to think “They might be busy, and one missed call doesn’t mean our relationship is in danger.”
Emotion Regulation and Self-Soothing Techniques
A common question that is asked in therapy is, “I know my thought isn’t true, so why do I still feel so anxious?” The answer to that question lies in emotion regulation. For those with anxious attachment, emotions can feel particularly intense and overwhelming. Even if we challenge our unhelpful thoughts, our bodies may still be on high alert for relational threats.
CBT therapists help clients recognize early signs of emotional escalation and practice more intentional strategies for responding to uncomfortable emotions. Self-soothing techniques help calm the nervous system in face of perceived danger:
- 5-4-3-2-1 technique: A grounding exercise that involves naming 5 things you see, 4 things you feel, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, and 1 thing you taste
- Box breathing: Slow down your breath by breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, exhaling for 4 seconds, and holding again for 4 seconds.
- Building self-compassionate self-talk: Use your inner dialogue to provide reassurance to yourself during times of emotional distress. You can say things like, “It’s ok to feel anxious right now. I can handle this feeling” and “It makes sense I feel this way, my needs matter” to validate your own feelings and relieve feelings of shame.
By practicing emotion regulation, clients build trust in their own ability to cope with distress. This reduces the need to rely on constant reassurance from others, fostering a stronger sense of internal security.
Behavior Modification and Relationship Skills
Anxious thoughts and feelings can lead us to engage in compulsive, reassurance-seeking behavior in an attempt to avoid the discomfort of our fears. Within the context of anxious attachment, this might look like excessive texting, difficulty respecting boundaries, and people pleasing. These behaviors may be comforting in the short-term, but they tend to wear on relationships over time.
CBT addresses these behaviors directly, using behavior modification strategies, to help clients reduce these compulsive patterns and live a more flexible life. Through role playing anxiety-inducing situations, clients can practice assertive communication skills and boundary setting. Exposure techniques may also be employed to help clients learn to tolerate their anxiety and lessen their dependence on external validation. By reinforcing secure behaviors, cognitive therapy helps clients build confidence in themselves and strengthen healthier patterns of relating.
Long-Term Growth and Healing through CBT
Through repeated practice and consistent efforts, clients of CBT can build long-lasting emotional independence and resilience. A key reason CBT is effective long term is neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new pathways based on repeated practice. The more often you practice reframing anxious thoughts, regulating your emotions, or asserting your needs, the stronger those new habits become.
For many, anxious attachment in adulthood is formed by experiencing inconsistent love and care in childhood, which leads us to expect such treatment in subsequent relationships. As clients intentionally and consistently practice more secure thinking and grounded responses in their relationships, a more secure attachment style begins to emerge.
Work with Humantold: Support for Anxious Attachment and More
Finding the right therapist can make all the difference when working through anxious attachment, which can come with cycles of worry, conflict, and self-doubt in your relationships. With the right support, change is absolutely possible. Through seeking out therapy for cognitive behavioral approaches, you can begin to learn how to challenge distorted thought patterns, calm distressing emotions, and relate to others in a more balanced and secure way.
At Humantold, we provide cognitive behavioral therapy in NYC to help clients address a range of concerns, including anxiety, depression, and relational challenges. Many of our therapists are trained in CBT and specialize in addressing attachment styles and relationship conflict. We focus on providing a trauma-informed, inclusive environment where you can explore the root causes of your attachment patterns and gain practical tools for change. Our clinicians understand that each client’s history and relationship experiences are unique, which is why we are committed to tailoring cognitive therapy to your specific goals.
If you're ready to heal from anxious attachment and build healthier relationships, reach out to a CBT therapist at Humantold today.