Disorganized Attachment in Adults: The Fearful-Avoidant Style Explained

From the moment we’re born, we’re driven to seek a close attachment with a caregiver. This attachment will impact us as we grow up, influencing the way we interact socially, self-regulate, and adapt to new situations.^[1] Attachment theory is the study of this process and what happens when our early bonds are difficult or traumatic.

Disorganized attachment, known as fearful-avoidant in adults, is the fourth style of attachment identified by attachment theory. The first three (secure, anxious, and avoidant) were identified first, and are known as “organized” attachment styles. Children with these styles show a consistent pattern of behavior because they’re accustomed to their parents’ style of caregiving.^[1]

However, when a caregiver is extremely inconsistent or “chaotic,” children may develop disorganized attachment. Plus, without appropriate healing or attachment repair, this attachment style can continue into adulthood, potentially creating several challenges when it comes to mental health, emotional regulation, and relationships.

If you’re concerned about how your attachment style may be affecting your well-being, a mental health professional can guide you through the steps for healing. This article can also help you better understand disorganized attachment by exploring:

• What disorganized attachment is and its causes
• Signs of fearful-avoidant attachment in adults
• The mental health risks of disorganized attachment
• Impacts of fearful-avoidance on relationships
• Steps to healing disorganized attachment style

What Is Disorganized Attachment?

Disorganized attachment was named after the patterns of inconsistency certain children tend to show in their attachment behaviors. Specifically, they alternate between the traits of anxious and avoidant tendencies depending on their current circumstances and past experiences.

Although children with disorganized attachment share traits with other attachment styles, how this attachment style is caused differs. It’s a reflection of a type of caregiving that is disordered and unpredictable.

Typically, children develop disorganized attachment when their caregiver is both a source of safety and fear. For instance, such caregivers may express anger excessively, fail to give reassurance or comfort in times of distress, and act withdrawn.^[1]

It’s more common for children to develop disorganized attachment when they grow up in less stable families. This could include environments in which there’s domestic violence, child abuse, or mental health issues. However, although disorganized attachment often arises from neglect, maltreatment, and family violence, these aren’t the only risk factors. It’s also been linked to parenting that’s extremely critical and emotionally neglectful.^[1]

Such experiences can be extremely confusing for children, resulting in two opposing needs at the same time: wanting to both flee the caregiver and approach them. This confusion can lead to a defense mechanism called “dissociation,” which helps the child tune out from intense emotions.

Without repair, these conflicting needs can persist in adulthood, creating mental health and relationship issues, which we’ll discuss later.^[1]

It’s important to note that the caregivers of disorganized children have often experienced extreme loss or abuse themselves. Sometimes they’re even afraid of their ability to parent and respond to the child’s needs. So, they don’t offer comfort when it’s needed.^[1] In this way, trauma and disorganized attachment are explicitly linked.

Signs of Disorganized Attachment in Adults

To identify whether someone has disorganized attachment, it’s useful to look at how they regulate their emotions and how they act in close relationships. For instance, the signs of disorganized attachment in adults often include:

• Withdrawing from intimacy when it feels too vulnerable
• Seeking intimacy, closeness, and reassurance after a time of avoidance
• Difficulty initiating and maintaining healthy relationships
• Expecting relationships to end in rejection or disappointment
• Struggles with trusting people
• Preferring strangers to their parents in childhood
• Reacting aggressively when needs are threatened
• Seeking to be independent and self-reliant, but also becoming needy

These fearful-avoidant attachment signs demonstrate a “push and pull” pattern in which someone seeks reassurance and intimacy but equally fears it.^[1]

Plus, on top of these relationship signs, someone with disorganized attachment may exhibit some of the following symptoms in their emotional life:

• A negative view of themselves and others
• Becoming easily overwhelmed by memories of trauma
• Struggling to regulate emotions in a healthy way
• Persistently worrying about abandonment and loss
• Dissociation
• Difficulties naming emotions and feelings

These signs, while characteristic of fearful-avoidance, can also arise when someone has experienced complex trauma. Complex trauma is when someone experiences multiple traumatic events over time, such as abuse, neglect, or witnessing violence and aggression.^[2]

Such events can cause disruptions in someone’s view of themselves, how they manage emotions, and the way they act in relationships.^[3] So, anyone exploring disorganized attachment might also look into C-PTSD, as these could co-exist.

Complex trauma might also cause symptoms of adult attachment disorders, which are rarer conditions caused by chronic neglect at an early age.

Disorganized Attachment and Mental Health

While all insecure attachment styles in adults pose risks to mental health, people with disorganized attachment are at greater risk. This is because the frightening and unsafe environment they’ve grown up in can significantly disrupt thinking, feeling, and behavior.^[1]

For instance, disorganized attachment can make it very difficult to cope with stressful situations and the challenges that come with growing up.^[1] It can also cause people to

dissociate during intensely emotional moments, which is how they may have automatically responded as children.

Dissociation is a stress response whereby someone’s brain attempts to protect itself by detaching from a threatening situation. Normally, this might happen in response to a sudden trauma, like a car crash, and then subside after the shock dissipates. However, when someone has complex trauma or a chaotic childhood, they can dissociate for longer periods and in response to things like sadness, everyday stress, or an argument with their partner.

There are a few different types of dissociative behaviors, for example:

• Depersonalization: A feeling of disconnection from one’s own body and thoughts
• Derealization: A feeling of disconnection from one’s surroundings and relationships
• Dissociative amnesia: Forgetting personal information like one’s own name or those of family members
• Dissociative identity disorder: Having at least two personality states that function separately^[1]

People with disorganized attachment are also at greater risk of engaging in self-harm and developing conditions like PTSD, anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder (BPD).^[1] Fortunately, there is a great deal of mental health support available for people with disorganized attachment, which we’ll explore later.

How Disorganized Attachment Affects Relationships

The attachments we form with our caregivers can significantly influence the bonds we form as adults – especially in romantic relationships.^[4] In other words, our attachment style has a lot to do with the way we think about and experience love in our lives.

But what does disorganized attachment in romantic relationships look like? And what’s it like to date someone with disorganized attachment?

Out of all four styles, people with disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment typically have the most difficulty in relationships.^[5] They may alternate between both anxious and avoidant ways, creating patterns of inconsistency and confusion. Relationships are often impacted by mood swings, and switching from being withdrawn to seeking reassurance.

People with this attachment style may also have difficulty understanding the behaviors of others.^[5] Therefore, communication can be challenging, as mutual understanding, empathy, and the ability to regulate emotions are key to resolving relationship conflicts.

People with disorganized attachment may struggle with trust, but they can also suffer from jealousy. This comes down to the anxious tendencies that are hypervigilant to threats to relationships, such as potential infidelity.^[6]

Additionally, someone with disorganized attachment might react with annoyance or distress when confronted with their partner’s emotional needs. This may be because their attachment style causes them to perceive negative emotions as a threat. Such reactions can lead to lower levels of mutual trust, fulfilment, and sexual satisfaction.^[7]

Healing Disorganized Attachment Style

When children are able to develop a secure attachment with their caregiver, they’re much more likely to form healthy relationships in adulthood and have good self-esteem.^[8] However, some adults have to develop security later in life when they heal from a disorganized attachment style with therapy.

Therapy for disorganized attachment can take many forms, each targeting specific features of the attachment style that are causing the most grief. For instance, someone with disorganized attachment might choose to get treatment for dissociation, anxiety, disordered behaviors, or relationship problems.

Based on your specific concerns, you might choose to go for couples therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), or you may decide to go with someone who specializes in dissociation. However, if you’ve experienced trauma, it’s recommended that you go to trauma-informed therapy.

Therapists trained to treat trauma understand the varying ways it can impact life and provide a space that’s sufficiently supportive. They can help you process what’s happened and teach you emotional regulation techniques. But, perhaps most importantly, they’re trained to avoid re-traumatization, which can occur when talking about past trauma.^[9]

If you’re wondering what disorganized attachment looks like in therapy, it’s good to be aware that you might, at the beginning, repeat your patterns of relating with your therapist. For example, you might switch between seeking reassurance and withdrawing. This is normal. Over time, the therapeutic relationship should shift things, teaching you how to build secure attachment by meeting your emotional needs.

Get Therapy for Disorganized Attachment

Disorganized attachment can take a significant toll on your mental health and relationships. Yet, regardless of what you’ve gone through, there is support to help you recover and forge secure and healthy attachments in the future.

If you’re looking for professional support for your attachment style or trauma, Mission Connection has a wide range of options. We can offer trauma-focused therapy, EMDR for trauma and PTSD, and many other therapy types. You don’t have to deal with attachment insecurity alone – our team can help you understand your experiences and work toward healing.

Contact us today if you have any questions about therapy for disorganized attachment, or are just seeking a compassionate ear.