Beyond Attachment Styles (Part II). What attachment questionnaires may be measuring in neurodivergent people?
One of the ways attachment theory is most commonly applied in contemporary practice is through psychometric tools.
Clients complete a questionnaire.
They respond to statements about closeness, dependence, and emotional needs.
A profile is generated.
Avoidant.
Anxious.
Secure.
These tools are widely used in research, clinical settings, and increasingly in online self-assessment. They include measures such as the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, the Adult Attachment Interview, and shorter self-report formats used in therapeutic contexts.
They are often treated as neutral instruments.
However, like all psychological measures, they are built on assumptions.
And those assumptions are not always examined.
What exactly is being measured?
Most attachment questionnaires rely on items such as:
“I am comfortable depending on others.”
“I worry about being abandoned.”
“I prefer not to be too close to others.”
“I find it difficult to trust people completely.”
On the surface, these appear straightforward. But clinically, they are highly ambiguous.
They assume that:
closeness is universally experienced as regulating
dependence is psychologically available to all individuals in the same way
emotional expression is consistent across neurotypes
trust can be assessed independently of context
These assumptions do not always hold for neurodivergent individuals.
Example 1: “I prefer not to be too close to others”
In a neurotypical framework, endorsement of this item may contribute to an avoidant attachment profile.
In practice, I would want to understand:
Does “closeness” include sensory proximity?
Is physical closeness overwhelming in certain environments?
Does the person need recovery time after interaction?
Is the preference stable, or context-dependent?
For an autistic client with sensory sensitivities, the answer may reflect regulation needs rather than avoidance. Without that context, the same response is interpreted as emotional distancing.
Example 2: “I find it difficult to trust people”
This item often contributes to anxious or disorganised classifications.
However, from a neurodivergent perspective, several additional factors may be relevant:
history of being misunderstood or misread
repeated experiences of social rupture
reliance on masking in relationships
difficulty interpreting ambiguous communication
In such cases, difficulty trusting may not reflect internal insecurity, but an adaptive response to relational environments that have not felt predictable or reciprocal.
Example 3: “I worry about being abandoned”
In traditional models, this is associated with anxious attachment.
In clinical work with ADHD or AuDHD individuals, it can also reflect:
difficulties maintaining a continuous sense of connection in the absence of contact
reliance on external cues (messages, presence) to access relational closeness
sensitivity to inconsistency in communication
What appears as anxiety may, in part, reflect variability in relational accessibility, rather than fear of abandonment per se.
Example 4: “I am comfortable depending on others”
This item is often taken as an indicator of secure attachment.
However, for many neurodivergent individuals, dependence is not only psychological, it is also:
sensory
cognitive
relational
Questions arise such as:
Does depending on others require masking?
Is support offered in a way that matches the person’s processing style?
Does dependence feel safe, or does it increase exposure to misunderstanding?
A person may endorse discomfort with dependence, not because they reject closeness, but because dependence has historically required significant adaptation.
The problem of interpretation
What becomes clear is that the same response can have multiple meanings.
Psychometric tools tend to:
standardise interpretation
reduce complexity
assume shared definitions of relational experience
This is useful for large-scale research. But it becomes limiting in clinical work, particularly with neurodivergent clients.
As highlighted in Neurodivergent Attachment Theory, behaviours that appear as avoidance or disorganisation may reflect differences in sensory processing, communication, and regulation rather than attachment insecurity.
From scores to formulation
In practice, this suggests a shift in how these tools are used.
Rather than treating them as diagnostic indicators, they can be used as:
starting points for exploration
prompts for clarification
opportunities to differentiate meaning
For example, instead of concluding that a client is “avoidantly attached,” we might ask:
What does closeness mean to you in different contexts?
When does it feel manageable, and when does it become overwhelming?
What helps you stay connected without losing regulation?
This moves us from classification to formulation.
Towards a neurodivergent-informed interpretation
From this perspective, responses to attachment measures can be understood through additional lenses:
Sensory regulation: how proximity and interaction are experienced physically
Relational accessibility: how easily connection can be accessed at a given moment
Masking and adaptation: how much adjustment is required to maintain connection
Contextual safety: how predictable and understandable the relational environment feels
These factors are rarely captured directly in standard attachment measures.
Implications for clinical practice
This does not mean that attachment theory or its associated tools should be discarded. However, it does require a more cautious and contextual approach. Clinicians working with neurodivergent clients may benefit from:
avoiding over-reliance on categorical attachment labels
exploring the meaning behind questionnaire responses
integrating sensory, cognitive, and relational factors into formulation
recognising that attachment expression may vary across contexts
Closing reflection
Psychometric tools offer a structured way of thinking about relationships. But structure can also obscure nuance.
If we are not careful, we risk interpreting neurodivergent experience through frameworks that were not designed to accommodate it.
The task, then, is not simply to reject these tools, but to use them more thoughtfully.
To ask not only: “What does this score indicate?”
But: “What does this response mean for this person, in this context, at this moment?”
Looking ahead
In the next article, I will explore how early developmental processes, particularly mirroring and being understood, interact with these patterns.
This includes examining how repeated experiences of misattunement may shape both self-perception and relational expectations over time.
