Do Anxious Attachment Styles Use Sex As A Strategy for Approval?

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Many Anxiously Attached individuals use sex and intimacy as a way to feel wanted, secure, or reassured — but the cost of this coping strategy can be deeply painful. What feels like closeness in the moment often becomes anxiety, self-betrayal, or emotional dependence afterward.

In this video, Thais Gibson breaks down what neuroscience and attachment research reveal about how Anxiously Attached individuals relate to sex, closeness, and approval. You’ll learn how subconscious beliefs drive these patterns, the hidden costs anxious attachers face, and what healthy intimacy looks like when these wounds begin to heal.

You’ll learn:
✅ What major studies reveal about Anxious Attachment and sexual motivation
✅ Why they use sex for reassurance, emotional safety, and self-esteem regulation
✅ How oxytocin, dopamine, and hypervigilance create a temporary “soothing effect” that reinforces the cycle
✅ The three most common patterns: violating personal boundaries, dissociation during intimacy, and hypersensitivity to rejection
✅ Why Anxiously Attached individuals often sacrifice their needs and sense of self in sexual relationships
✅ The difference between true vulnerability vs. approval-seeking intimacy
✅ How to build a healthier relationship with sex through boundaries, reciprocity, and rewiring core beliefs
✅ Why different attachment styles connect in different “pillars of intimacy” — intellectual, emotional, romantic, and sexual — and how this affects relationship expectations

Episode Breakdown: 
00:00 – Do Anxious Attachment Styles Use Sex As A Strategy for Approval?
00:52 – Attachment Style and Subjective Motivations for Sex
01:36 – Anxious Attachment Styles are Hyper-Tuned to Rejection
02:12 – Having a Strong Sense of Self
03:36 – What Anxiously Attached Individuals Use Sex For
05:21 – They can Violate Their Own Boundaries
06:23 – They are Too Involved With The Other Person's Experience
06:50 – Black Friday: Somatic Processing Course Promo
07:27 – Anxiously Attached Individuals Are Sensitive to Rejection Around Sex

Meet the Host
Thais Gibson is the founder of The Personal Development School and a world leader in attachment theory. With a Ph.D. and over a dozen certifications, she’s helped more than 70,000 people reprogram their subconscious and build thriving relationships.

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Understanding these patterns allows you to create healthier boundaries, connect with greater self-trust, and build intimacy that’s rooted in mutual respect — not fear, overgiving, or the hope for approval.