The attachment secret: are you a secure, avoidant or anxious partner?

It's difficult to find lasting love, but by recognising your attachment type you can be more conscious in your relationships and stop self-sabotaging

It was the breakup that changed Amir Levine's life. Fifteen years ago, he told his partner that he was falling in love with him and wanted them to move forward as a couple. His partner fled, moving across the country. The end of the relationship was especially painful for Levine. At the time he was a student at Columbia University in New York, where he is now assistant professor of clinical psychiatry. He was working in a therapeutic nursery programme, helping mothers with post-traumatic stress bond with their children. Through it, he became fascinated by the science of adult attachment.

In the 1950s, the influential British psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowlby observed the lifelong impact of the earliest bonds formed in life, between children and parents, or primary caregivers: attachment theory, which has been widely researched and drawn upon since then. There are three major styles of attachment: secure, anxious and avoidant.