Dismissive Avoidant vs. Fearful Avoidant Attachment: Key Differences and Similarities
Attachment theory was first introduced by John Bowlby in the 1950s and extended by Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s. To this day, it continues to offer insights into how early relational experiences shape our ability to feel safe with others during adulthood.1
At its core, the theory divides attachment into secure and insecure categories. Within insecure attachment, researchers identify three major subtypes, which are:
- Anxious preoccupied
- Dismissive avoidant
- Fearful avoidant (disorganized)
Dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant patterns share a tendency to withdraw from vulnerability, but they originate and manifest in unique ways. To help you understand the similarities and differences between these two avoidant styles, this page covers:
- How to understand the different avoidant styles
- The comparisons between dismissive avoidant vs fearful avoidant attachment
- How both styles are similar
- How dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant are different
- Therapy and support options for avoidant attachment styles
- Where to find professional support for avoidant attachment
Understanding Avoidant Attachment Styles
An avoidant attachment style is a pattern of relating to others that can develop when early caregivers are emotionally unavailable or rejecting. Therefore, a child learns that expressing needs and seeking closeness will not be met with comfort.
As a result, individuals with this style tend to suppress their emotional needs.
Avoidant attachment is not a single, uniform style but can be expressed in two main forms: dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant.
What Is Dismissive Avoidant Attachment?
Dismissive avoidant people tend to be self-reliant, emotionally distant, and dismissive of intimacy. They hold a positive self-view but harbor a negative view of others (often as a method to distract from low self-worth). As a result, they suppress emotional dependency as a protective strategy.
Research reveals that avoidantly attached people share less joy or emotional disclosure.2 They might also feel lower intimacy and struggle to differentiate the closeness between intimate vs. casual partners.
When confronted by emotional closeness or conflict, their defenses often kick in the following ways:
- Emotional distancing and staying aloof even in intimate settings
- Minimizing relational importance
- Refusing to let others in emotionally
- Self-sufficiency to a fault, often avoiding help even when strained
Attachment styles also ripple across generations. For example, research shows that a dismissive avoidant father’s detachment can increase adolescent anxiety, compounding cycles of insecurity.3 This phenomenon is known as “transgenerational attachment.”
What Is Fearful Avoidant Attachment?
The Comparison Between Dismissive Avoidant vs. Fearful Avoidant Attachment
Both types of avoidant attachment patterns are rooted in early experiences that disrupt a sense of safety and trust in relationships, yet they manifest in distinct ways. We discuss the similarities and differences between these styles in the following sections.
How Are Dismissive Avoidant vs. Fearful Avoidant Attachment Similar?
At first glance, the dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant attachment styles can diverge significantly. One distances themselves through confident self-reliance, the other through anxious ambivalence.
However, both share many similarities, too, including the following:
Avoidance of Emotional Intimacy
Both dismissive and fearful avoidant people tend to protect themselves from being too close to anyone emotionally.
Dismissive avoidants often suppress their needs of attachment while presenting themselves as independent and self-sufficient. They typically believe that they don’t need to rely on anyone for support. This is a form of cognitive strategy known as “deactivation,” where someone consciously suppresses any attachment-related thoughts and feelings to maintain psychological distance.
Fearful avoidants, on the other hand, desire deep emotional connections. But they find intimacy profoundly threatening due to their childhood experiences. Their early interactions with a frightening caregiver can train their brains to associate closeness with risk rather than safety.
The shared outcome is that people with either attachment style strive to maintain emotional distance from others.
Difficulty Maintaining Relationships
Sustaining healthy relationships can be challenging for both dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant attachment styles, although for different reasons.
Dismissive avoidants often withdraw during conflict. They may also show low levels of emotional expressiveness and rely heavily on self-soothing rather than partner support. This tendency undermines relationship satisfaction over time. And in long-term partnerships, it can lead to a gradual erosion of intimacy.
Fearful avoidants exhibit more chaotic or volatile patterns. At favorable times when everything around them feels safe, they seek intense intimacy, only to abruptly pull away when they perceive possible rejection or threat.
Underlying Anxiety
Both dismissive and fearful avoidants typically display an undercurrent of relational anxiety.
From the outside, dismissive avoidants often appear calm and unaffected by intimacy needs. However, studies have shown that they experience higher-than-normal autonomic nervous system responses (such as increased heart rate and cortisol levels) when faced with relational conflict.6 Therefore, their avoidance is not true indifference; it is a protective suppression of discomfort.
Fearful avoidants usually display more overt anxiety. They may struggle with emotion regulation, showing higher levels of rejection sensitivity, and reporting feeling both unworthy of love and distrustful of others.
Thus, as is clear, In both groups, anxiety underlies avoidance.
How Are Fearful Avoidant vs. Dismissive Avoidant Different?
While avoidance of emotional intimacy and underlying anxiety runs through fearful and dismissive avoidance, the causes and impacts of both can differ significantly. We cover these differences in the following paragraphs.
Causes
Dismissive avoidant attachment develops in environments where a child’s emotional needs are consistently discouraged. Caregiving is not necessarily hostile. It is just emotionally unavailable.
Most of the time, the child’s basic needs like food, shelter, and education are taken care of. But their parents fail to provide warmth and validation.
The key factors contributing to dismissive avoidant attachment include:
- Consistent emotional neglect and minimization
- Cultural or familial emphasis on independence
- Reflecting the pattern of emotional suppression that the parents display
In contrast, fearful avoidant attachment emerges in a far more chaotic environment. It is born out of caregiving that is both a source of comfort and fear.7
This environment typically includes:
- Abuse and trauma from caregivers, where the caregiver is simultaneously the safe base and the source of danger
- Severe inconsistency in reactions
- Exposure to unresolved trauma or mental illness in the caregiver
Effect on Relationships
Dismissive avoidants maintain relationships by minimizing their own need for closeness. For this reason, their partners often describe them as “emotionally unavailable.” Plus, research shows that dismissive avoidants are less likely to seek support from partners during stress and less likely to offer it in return.8
When conflict arises, they are more likely to shut down rather than work through issues collaboratively. Therefore, the emotional reciprocity and openness that make intimacy sustainable are often missing.
Fearful avoidant attachment looks very different in its relational effects. The oscillation between hot-and-cold behavior makes relationships unpredictable. People with this style are prone to displaying anger, protest behaviors, or intense jealousy when attachment fears are triggered.
Emotional Expression and Regulation
The emotional life of people with dismissive avoidant attachment is typically muted and distant from conscious awareness. They rely on strategies of emotional deactivation, which means they disconnect from their own feelings before they can even surface fully.
They might frequently report trouble remembering emotional experiences, which shows they may be blocking out those memories as a way to keep themselves feeling stable.
Anger appears in indirect or delayed forms, but vulnerable emotions such as sadness, longing, or fear are rarely allowed into the open. In general, their emotional expression appears controlled, even in situations that would normally evoke strong reactions.
Fearful avoidants, in contrast, do not consistently block emotion. In stressful or intimate situations, emotions tend to rise quickly and with high intensity. Yet, at other times, they might abruptly cut off from those same feelings.
As a result, fearful avoidants display a jagged pattern of emotional expression: passionate and raw at one moment, and withdrawn at the next.
Therapy and Support for Avoidant Attachment Styles
Healing from insecure attachment is not a quick or simple process.
On one hand, personal practices such as self-reflection, self-care, and learning healthier ways to manage emotions can create the foundation for change. On the other, therapeutic approaches can provide the corrective experiences needed to challenge deep-seated patterns of mistrust.
We cover some support strategies for these avoidant styles below.
Self-Care
Both dismissive and fearful avoidants minimize their own needs. This is why self-care plays a foundational role in healing avoidant attachment patterns. It allows people to reconnect with their inner needs and begin fostering a sense of safety within themselves.
Some effective self-care practices are as follows:
- Writing reflections helps dismissive avoidants access their suppressed emotions and gives fearful avoidants structure when they feel overwhelmed
- Mindfulness or meditation increases awareness of emotional states and gives way to expression9
- Body-based practices, like yoga, tai chi, or breathwork, connect the body with emotions and may reduce emotional detachment10
- Creative expression through art, music, movement, or photography can be a safe outlet for emotions that are too difficult to articulate verbally
Emotional Regulation Strategies
Avoidant attachment is closely tied to challenges in recognizing, tolerating, and expressing emotions. Therefore, developing emotional regulation strategies can allow for healthier emotional expression.
Avoidant styles struggle not only with expressing emotions but also with noticing them in the first place. Labeling feelings in real time, even with simple words such as “anger,” “sadness,” or “relief,” can strengthen your emotional literacy.12
Fearful avoidants who experience extreme emotional swings should practice calming sensory experiences, such as a warm bath, aromatherapy, or slow physical movement.
Dismissive avoidant individuals, however, need to develop tolerance for interpersonal vulnerability. Try to gradually practice openness in conversations, starting with neutral topics and slowly moving toward more personal reflections.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Attachment-based therapy addresses the underlying internal working models among those with avoidant attachment. The therapist serves as a secure attachment figure who creates a consistently safe environment needed for healing.
Attachment-based therapy can be delivered through various forms of therapy.
Schema therapy, for example, targets deeply ingrained beliefs associated with avoidant attachment.12 These beliefs include:
- Emotional deprivation
- Social isolation
- Abandonment
- Emotional inhibition
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) was initially tested for couples, but it is also based upon the principles of attachment theory and shares similar goals to schema therapy.13 It encourages recognizing negative thought patterns and reshaping the emotional bond toward secure “effective dependency.”
Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT) extends these principles to the family system. Attachment injuries are often rooted in disrupted parent-child relationships. Thus, ABFT aims to repair relational ruptures between parents and children through structured conversations that address hurt, disappointment, and unmet needs.
ABFT has been shown to decrease attachment avoidance among young adults presenting unresolved anger toward a parent.14
Get Help for Avoidant Attachment Styles at Mission Connection
If you recognize yourself in the patterns of dismissive or fearful avoidant attachment, we understand your struggles.
At Mission Connection, we have licensed psychotherapists who specialize in attachment-based care and understand the unique challenges avoidant styles cause.
We provide a range of therapy options, like individual sessions online, flexible outpatient services, or more structured programs, such as inpatient and partial hospitalization (PHP).
Our goal is to make support accessible to your needs, so you can heal at your own pace in a safe environment. Call us today or get started online.
References
- Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 759–775. https://psychology.psy.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins%20DP1992.pdf
- Sheinbaum, T., Kwapil, T. R., Ballespí, S., Mitjavila, M., Chun, C. A., Silvia, P. J., & Barrantes-Vidal, N. (2015). Attachment style predicts affect, cognitive appraisals, and social functioning in daily life. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 296. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00296
- Picardi, A., Caroppo, E., Fabi, E., Proietti, S., Di Maria, G., & Martinotti, G. (2013). Attachment and parenting in adult patients with anxiety disorders. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 9, 157–163. https://doi.org/10.2174/1745017901309010157
- Dan, O., Zreik, G., & Raz, S. (2019). The relationship between individuals with fearful-avoidant adult attachment orientation and early neural responses to emotional content: An event-related potentials (ERPs) study. Neuropsychology, 34(2), 168–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000600
- Favez, N., & Tissot, H. (2019). Fearful-avoidant attachment: A specific impact on sexuality? Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 45(6), 510–523. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623x.2019.1566946
- Kidd, T., Hamer, M., & Steptoe, A. (2011). Examining the association between adult attachment style and cortisol responses to acute stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36(6), 771–779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2010.10.014
- Duschinsky, R. (2018). Disorganization, fear and attachment: Working towards clarification. Infant Mental Health Journal, 39(1), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21689
- Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
- Wu, R., Liu, L. L., Zhu, H., Su, W. J., Cao, Z. Y., Zhong, S. Y., & Wang, Y. (2019). Brief mindfulness meditation improves emotion processing. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 1074. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01074
- Herbert, C. (2021). Can yoga boost access to the bodily and emotional self? Changes in heart rate variability and in affective evaluation before, during and after a single session of yoga exercise with and without instructions of controlled breathing and mindful body awareness in young healthy women. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 731645. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.731645
- Lane, R. D., & Smith, R. (2021). Levels of emotional awareness: Theory and measurement of a socio-emotional skill. Journal of Intelligence, 9(3), 42. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030042
- Emami, M., Moghadasin, M., Mastour, H., & Tayebi, A. (2024). Early maladaptive schema, attachment style, and parenting style in a clinical population with personality disorder and normal individuals: A discriminant analysis model. BMC Psychology, 12(1), 1564. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01564-5
- Greenman, P. S., & Johnson, S. M. (2021). Emotionally focused therapy (EFT): Attachment, connection, and health. Current Opinion in Psychology, 43, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.06.015
- Diamond, G. M., Shahar, B., Sabo, D., & Tsvieli, N. (2016). Attachment-based family therapy and emotion-focused therapy for unresolved anger: The role of productive emotional processing. Psychotherapy, 53(1), 34–44. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst000002