How to read your result
The ECR-R measures two things, not four. Anxiety is how much you worry about losing closeness. Avoidance is how uncomfortable you are getting close in the first place. The four named styles are just the four combinations.
- Low anxiety, low avoidance. Secure attachment.
- High anxiety, low avoidance. Anxious or preoccupied attachment.
- Low anxiety, high avoidance. Dismissive avoidant attachment.
- High anxiety, high avoidance. Fearful avoidant attachment, sometimes called disorganized.
Most people are not pure types. A score five points above midpoint on one axis matters less than a score fifteen points above. The number is the useful part.
Secure attachment
Low anxiety, low avoidance. You generally feel comfortable being close to others and you don't spend a lot of time worrying about being left. This doesn't mean every relationship is easy. It means the baseline is not running on anxiety. Around half of adults score in this range in population samples.
Anxious attachment (preoccupied)
High anxiety, low avoidance. You want closeness, you can give it, and you worry a lot about losing it. The phone going quiet for an afternoon feels louder than it should. You often read relationship dynamics more sharply than the people around you.
Therapy for anxious attachment usually focuses on the early experiences that taught you closeness was conditional. Emotionally focused therapy and schema therapy both have evidence here. The skill being built is sitting with the spike of anxiety long enough for it to drop, instead of acting on it.
Dismissive avoidant attachment
Low anxiety, high avoidance. You are comfortable on your own. You find it hard to depend on people. Partners often describe you as cold or distant, which usually surprises you, because internally it feels more like self-sufficiency than rejection.
Therapy for dismissive avoidant attachment tends to focus on building the tolerance for the feelings that closeness brings up, which the pattern was built to keep at distance. Internal Family Systems and longer-term psychodynamic work both have a track record here.
Fearful avoidant attachment (disorganized)
High anxiety, high avoidance. You want closeness and you fear it. Relationships swing between pursuing and pulling away. This pattern is often connected to early trauma or to caregivers who were both source and threat in childhood. It is the most painful of the four to live with.
Therapy for disorganized attachment almost always includes trauma-focused work. EMDR, somatic experiencing, and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy all have evidence. The work is slower and more rewarding than people expect at the start.
How attachment style affects compulsive sexual behavior
Anxious and avoidant attachment styles both correlate with compulsive sexual behavior in the published research. The mechanism is usually this: sex becomes a way to regulate the feelings the attachment system would normally regulate. Anxiety drops. Loneliness gets numbed. Distress quiets. The same way pornography or compulsive use does the regulation work for some people.
If you scored above midpoint on either axis above and you are also working on compulsive sexual behavior, the attachment piece is often part of the story. The porn addiction test covers the behavior side. The practical 30-day plan walks through how to replace the function the behavior was serving, which is the same work attachment therapy does at a deeper level. The daily recovery log is sixty seconds a day if you want to start tracking what shows up around the pattern.
Can attachment style change?
Yes. The research is clear that attachment is not fixed. It shifts with experience, with therapy, and with the quality of the relationships you spend time in. "Earned secure" is the term used in the literature for becoming more secure over time, usually through some combination of a steady partner or close friend and the right therapy.
The first useful step is the one you just did: getting a real number. The second is watching that number move across months.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four attachment styles?
Secure, anxious (preoccupied), dismissive avoidant, and fearful avoidant (sometimes called disorganized). The four come from combinations of two underlying dimensions: how much you worry about closeness, and how much you avoid it.
Can attachment style change?
Yes. It shifts with experience, therapy, and the relationships you spend time in. The term in the research is "earned secure."
What is the best therapy for anxious attachment?
Emotionally focused therapy, schema therapy, and longer-term psychodynamic work have the most consistent evidence. The shared element is naming and working through the early experiences that taught you closeness was unsafe.
Is attachment style connected to compulsive sexual behavior?
Yes. Both anxious and avoidant styles correlate with compulsive sexual behavior in several published studies. Sex becomes a way to regulate feelings the attachment system would normally regulate.
Reviewed by the Chosen Recovery team. Last reviewed May 11, 2026.
Sources. Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G., & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment (ECR-R). | Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood, 2nd ed. | Gilliland, R., South, M., Carpenter, B. N., & Hardy, S. A. (2011). The roles of shame and guilt in hypersexual behavior.
This quiz is for personal reflection only and is not a clinical diagnosis.