What is the Attachment Styles Questionnaire?
The Banjo Lesson, Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1893
The Attachment Styles Questionnaire is a self-report psychological assessment to help individuals better understand how they relate to others in close relationships. The questionnaire looks at patterns of emotional connection, trust, openness, and dependence that often originate in early interactions with caregivers, with a strong focus on attachment theory. These early relational experiences contribute to what therapists call an “internal working model” of relationships, creating expectations about whether others will be available, responsive, receptive and supportive. Over time, these expectations can influence how individuals approach intimacy, conflict, communication, and emotional vulnerability in adulthood.
The questionnaire typically consists of a series of statements about thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviours in relationships. Respondents indicate the degree to which each statement reflects their experience, allowing the measure to identify underlying patterns of attachment. Many modern attachment questionnaires assess dimensions such as attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance, which look at concerns about rejection or abandonment and discomfort with emotional closeness. Then, it provides insight into how individuals seek support, regulate emotions, communicate, and navigate closeness with others.
Results from the questionnaire are usually interpreted in relation to several widely recognized attachment styles. A secure attachment style demonstrates comfort with both intimacy and independence, allowing individuals to form stable and trusting relationships. In contrast, anxious attachment tends to involve heightened concern about rejection or abandonment, usually accompanied by strong desires for reassurance and closeness. Avoidant attachment is characterised by discomfort with emotional dependency and a tendency to maintain distance in relationships. Some models also recognize a disorganized or fearful-avoidant pattern, in which individuals desire and fear closeness at the same time.
Darby and Joan, Painting by James Charles, 1890
In clinical and therapeutic contexts, the Attachment Styles Questionnaire can be a useful starting point for understanding relational patterns through offering individuals an opportunity to consider how past experiences may have to do with present interpersonal dynamics, including how they respond to trust, conflict, dependency, and emotional intimacy. Because attachment patterns often operate outside of conscious awareness, structured questionnaires can help bring these relational tendencies into focus and provide language for experiences that may otherwise feel difficult to articulate.
Within psychodynamic psychotherapy, insights from attachment-based assessments can strengthen the exploration of relational themes that come up in therapy. Understanding a person’s attachment tendencies may show recurring emotional patterns, expectations of others, perceptions, and ways of seeking or avoiding closeness. Rather than assigning fixed labels, the purpose of such tools is to support reflection and dialogue where greater awareness of these patterns can be developed and gradually moved toward more secure ways of relating to themselves and others.