What Does Healthy Attachment Really Look Like?
(and why it’s not about being calm or regulated all the time)
When we talk about attachment, we’re really talking about relationship — our lifelong patterns of how we come into connection with ourselves, others, and the world around us. Healthy attachment is not a static state or a personality type; it’s a living, breathing process that grows and changes throughout our lives.
In Duey Freeman’s Attachment and Development model, healthy attachment is the foundation for growth, belonging, and authenticity. It allows us to move fluidly between connection and autonomy — to reach for support when we need it, and to stand grounded in ourselves when we don’t. Fragmented attachment, on the other hand, happens when that natural flow is disrupted. It’s not a flaw or disorder, but an adaptive response to relationships or systems that couldn’t fully meet us.
Healthy Attachment Is Fluid, Not Fixed
One of the biggest misconceptions about attachment work is the idea that being “healthy” means always being calm, grounded, or self-regulated. In reality, a healthy nervous system is fluid, not frozen. It knows how to mobilize when we need to respond to life’s challenges and how to return to rest when safety returns.
From a somatic perspective, healthy attachment looks like flexibility and choice. It’s not about being regulated all the time; it’s about being able to move through activation with awareness, without getting stuck. We can notice what’s happening in our bodies, bring presence to our experience, and choose how we want to respond rather than react.
Fragmented attachment often shows up as rigidity or collapse — a sense of being caught in familiar patterns, unable to access that sense of choice. We might find ourselves over-functioning or withdrawing, performing to stay connected, or numbing to avoid overwhelm. These are all intelligent adaptations our bodies once used to protect connection when we didn’t have better options.
Healthy Attachment Is Embodied
We don’t think our way into healthy attachment — we experience it. Our bodies are the first place relationship happens. As infants, attachment begins in the nonverbal space between caregiver and child: gaze, tone, rhythm, warmth. Our nervous systems learn what it feels like to be met and mirrored.
In adulthood, that embodied language of relationship continues. Healthy attachment feels like the capacity to stay present with what’s happening inside us while remaining in contact with what’s outside of us. It’s the ability to say, “I can be with myself and with you at the same time.”
This presence is something we can nurture through mindfulness, somatic awareness, and attunement practices. It’s not about perfection; it’s about deepening our capacity to notice, sense, and stay curious.
Healthy Attachment in the Natural World
The natural world offers a living example of healthy attachment. Every being — from trees to rivers to herds of horses — exists in relationship. There’s both interdependence and individuality. A forest thrives not because every tree is the same, but because of the diversity and communication within its ecosystem.
Animals, too, show us what attunement looks like. A herd of horses responds fluidly to each other’s energy, moving as one organism when needed, then returning to grazing when safety is restored. They embody the balance between connection and autonomy.
As humans, we’ve often lost touch with these natural rhythms. Our culture, shaped by industrial and capitalist values, prizes independence and self-sufficiency over interdependence. But we are not meant to live outside of relationship. Healthy attachment, in many ways, is about re-membering — re-weaving ourselves back into the web of life that sustains us.
The Role of Relationship in Healing
In therapy, the relationship itself becomes the ground for healing attachment wounds. Through Gestalt and attachment-based work, we create a space where you can safely explore old patterns and experiment with new ways of being.
Healthy attachment grows through experience, not explanation. As we slow down and bring awareness to the present moment — what you feel, sense, and notice in your body and in the relational dynamic — you begin to experience yourself differently. You learn what it feels like to have choice, to set boundaries without losing connection, to express needs without shame, to stay in relationship even when it’s uncomfortable.
Duey Freeman teaches that development is lifelong — we are always capable of growing new neural pathways, new ways of relating. Healing isn’t about erasing the past; it’s about integrating it. As we do, we find that our capacity for intimacy, creativity, and authenticity expands.
Coming Home to Healthy Attachment
Healthy attachment is not a destination; it’s the process and practice in and of relationship. It’s found in the ongoing rhythm of connection, rupture, and repair — within ourselves, with others, and with the natural world.
When we cultivate presence and awareness, we begin to live from a place of grounded authenticity rather than reactivity. We can feel our emotions without being overwhelmed by them, and we can move through the world with more fluidity, curiosity, and compassion.
Healing our attachment is ultimately about coming home — to our bodies, to our belonging, and to the living world that has always held us.
If this resonates with you, I offer attachment-based therapy, nature-based therapy, and equine-assisted sessions in Durango, Colorado, and online throughout the state. Reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consultation.
