How you interact with people as an adult can depend on the important relationships you had when you were young. If you didn’t get the support, care, love, and comfort you needed during childhood, you might have a hard time with relationships now. The concept is called attachment theory.
The theory suggests that the way you attached to your caregivers early on forms your attachment style.
Disorganized attachment style can form if you had a rocky relationship with your parents or caregivers. Also known as fearful-avoidant attachment, growing up this way can make you afraid of close connections. It can impact your emotions and how much you trust in key relationships with partners, parents, or children.
This attachment style may be linked to anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal, making it hard to keep friends and feel comfortable in social situations. If you have signs of disorganized attachment, there are ways to adjust and have fulfilling close relationships.
What Is Disorganized Attachment?
“Attachment styles are typical patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving in close relationships,” says Aidan G.C. Wright, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “They [attachment styles] are thought to reflect internal working models for how people understand themselves and others in relationships.”
There are four attachment styles:
Secure: emotionally available and comfortable in relationships
Anxious-preoccupied: needy and not always trusting
Avoidant-dismissive: guarded and self-reliant
Disorganized: unpredictable (both needy and distant)
“Individuals who have a disorganized attachment style tend to have a negative view of themselves and others, seeing themselves as not good enough or unworthy, but also seeing others as risky or dangerous,” says Wright.
Behaviors and wishes seem confusing. “They desire and seek out intimacy and connection but also are fearful that the other person might hurt them (or take advantage of them)," Wright says. "They can pull away or respond with hostility.”
The main issue is that they are afraid of being betrayed. “They have a hard time trusting, yet they are desperate to feel seen, heard, understood, and have intimacy,” says Victoria Kress, PhD, counselor and president-elect of the American Counseling Association.
What Causes a Disorganized Attachment Style?
Attachment styles are partly driven by the temperament we are born with and partly by our experiences, says Wright. If you're more sensitive and reactive to threats, and you experience more negative emotions, you're more likely to develop a disorganized attachment style, he explains.
The relationships you have very early in life often have an impact. "It's thought that people who grow up with inconsistent messaging from caregivers and a chaotic and unpredictable home life are more likely to develop disorganized attachment styles," says Wright.
Some factors that can play a role:
- Physical abuse
- Physical neglect, including poor nutrition and lack of physical activity or medical care
- Emotional neglect
- Caregiver absence due to illness, separation, adoption, or loss
- Inconsistent caregiving, such as many changes in day care or babysitters
- Traumatic experiences, like an accident or illness
- Unpredictable or emotionally unavailable caregiver
Can disorganized attachment style be passed down?
If a child's close caregiver (like a parent) was not securely attached to their own caregiver (like the child's grandparent), there’s a good chance the child will experience the same feelings.
“Studies indicate a strong correlation between the attachment style of parents — especially mothers — and that of their children, with some research suggesting up to a 70% likelihood of a child having the same attachment style as their primary caregiver,” says Kress.
A child watches the behaviors modeled by their caregivers. Kress explains that attachment style passes down through generations from:
The attachment experiences a child has
Caregivers displaying insecure behaviors in relationships
The lingering effects of unresolved trauma within families
“The modeling of attachment behaviors and the emotional climate in the family are significant factors,” Kress says.
Disorganized Attachment Style Signs
Signs of disorganized attachment can include:
- Hard time trusting people, which makes it difficult to rely on others
- Difficulty controlling emotions, often with extreme highs and lows
- Trouble with commitment
- Fear of intimacy and fear of rejection, to the point that they may avoid relationships completely
- Negative self-view and negative view of other people, requiring reassurance that they deserve kindness and care
- High anxiety
- Limited social skills, making it hard to have friends and sometimes even a job
- Defensiveness, always guarded looking for signs of betrayal
If you grew up with unreliable caregivers, you may have a push and pull in your relationships. You might be afraid of rejection, so you avoid getting close to someone. But when you do get close to someone, you might show these tendencies:
Craving attention and care, which can lead to needy behavior
Seeing your partner as perfect, at first, and then starting to believe they have no good qualities at all
“In adulthood, disorganized attachment is likely to behave in contradictory ways in close relationships,” Wright says. “For instance, seeking out support but responding negatively (anger, anxiety) when support is offered.”
This can also impact other areas of life. “Beyond relationships, fearful-avoidant attachment can affect self-esteem, concentration, and the ability to self-soothe. That sometimes leads people to focus on work or other pursuits to avoid emotional vulnerability and the fear of being hurt,” says Kress.
How Is Disorganized Attachment Style Diagnosed?
Disorganized attachment is not a formal psychiatric diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be recognized and treated.
“If you have a therapist or clinician whose work is informed by attachment theory, they are likely to identify it as an issue. It may become a focus of treatment or part of what is discussed in treatment,” says Wright.
How Does a Disorganized Attachment Style Feel in a Relationship?
A person with disorganized attachment often wants conflicting things, so they have contradictory behavior. They might want to be close and crave attention. But then they distance themselves and push people away.
If you're the partner to someone with a disorganized attachment style, you might feel confused or unsure about your place in the relationship.
“They [people with disorganized attachment style] often respond with feelings and behaviors that feel disproportionate to the circumstances,” Wright says. “Being in this sort of relationship feels confusing, bewildering, or like you just don’t know what to expect. It can lead a person to mistrust their partner or mistrust their own perceptions.”
Although it can be confusing and sometimes frustrating, a good relationship is far from unreachable. “With patience, empathy, and a commitment to growth from both partners, it's possible to foster a stable and fulfilling relationship,” Kress says.
What to Do About Your Disorganized Attachment Style
It’s possible to heal from earlier trauma and learn to have healthy, happy relationships.
“It's important to address, through therapy, underlying unresolved trauma issues as they will continue to get triggered,” says Kress. “Counseling can provide a safe space to process unresolved trauma, build trust, practice vulnerability, and learn to set healthy boundaries.”
Therapy
Kress suggests some types of therapy that might help:
Cognitive behavioral therapy helps identify, then change, negative thinking and behavior patterns.
Attachment-based therapy focuses on looking at early caregiving relationships and how they have an impact on current patterns.
Interpersonal therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy help people improve relationship skills while understanding how childhood experiences have an impact on adult relationships.
Trauma therapy can help identify traumatic experiences and recover from them.
“With support and self-awareness, people can work toward healthier ways of relating to themselves and others,” says Kress. She says it’s key to develop emotion regulation skills as well as communication skills. Journaling and being mindful are ways to build self-awareness and overcome negative thoughts.
It’s also important to learn how to choose healthy partners, says Kress. People with disorganized attachment style "often select partners who trigger the very attachment issues with which they struggle. They often pick partners who betray them, do not show up to meet their needs, and are overall not safe partners,” she says.
For a successful relationship, Kress suggests:
- Create a predictable, emotionally safe environment. Be consistent, reliable, and nonjudgmental.
- Communicate openly and honestly, using active listening and "I" statements.
- Encourage your partner to share their needs and boundaries.
- Respect and establish healthy boundaries, changing them as needed.
- Build trust gradually through small, consistent actions and patience.
Medical treatment
There is no specific medical treatment for disorganized attachment. But sometimes it’s associated with other conditions like anxiety and depression, which do have treatments. Treating those associated conditions may make it easier to deal with disorganized attachment.
“People with disorganized attachment are more likely to engage in some of the more dramatic displays of the style when they're acutely distressed,” Wright says. “They're more likely to have problems related to their attachment style when they are depressed or have significant anxiety.”
If you’re struggling with your feelings, don’t wait to reach out to your doctor. Call 988 if you are having thoughts of suicide.
How to Be With Someone With Disorganized Attachment Style
You can have a good relationship with someone who has disorganized attachment style. Learn what you can, so you understand where the feelings and behaviors are coming from.
“It's important to understand that the person [who has disorganized attachment style] experiences acute desires for closeness. They need to be reassured, but they also often feel concerned that they are being controlled or disparaged,” says Wright. “Learning to recognize their triggers and vulnerabilities will go a long way to anticipating and knowing how best to react.”
He offers these tips for a good relationship:
- Behave in a predictable and constant way so there are no fears about underlying motives.
- When you have an issue, tell them you take their concerns seriously and understand them.
- Try not to be defensive.
- Come up with a shared language so you can discuss problems as they arise.
- Consider couples therapy with someone who studies attachment.
Takeaways
- Disorganized attachment style, also known as fearful-avoidant attachment, can happen when you have a rocky relationship with your parents or caregivers. It can be the result of neglect or abuse.
- As an adult you can yearn for close relationships but are afraid to trust, so there’s a lot of push and pull, and relationships can be a roller coaster.
- People with disorganized attachment can have issues with intimacy, emotions, trust, and commitment. A partner can become unsure or confused in a relationship.
- Therapy can help process trauma and help develop trust and attachment issues.
Disorganized Attachment Style FAQs
What is the hardest attachment style to love?
Disorganized attachment is the most extreme and the most unpredictable of the four attachment styles. But you can work on a close relationship no matter what type of attachment style you and your partner have.
What trauma causes disorganized attachment?
Childhood trauma can contribute to disorganized attachment. Trauma can include emotional or physical abuse or neglect, domestic violence, death of a parent or caregiver, or a serious accident or illness.
How can you tell if someone has disorganized attachment?
One of the most common signs of disorganized attachment is very contradictory actions and feelings. People with disorganized attachment style really want a close relationship, but also back away from closeness. They might have a hard time trusting people because they’re afraid of being rejected, and they have difficulty controlling their emotions.
Is disorganized attachment the same as borderline personality disorder?
These are not the same, but they are related, says Wright. “Typically people with borderline personality disorder are likely to have disorganized attachment styles as part of a broader profile of interpersonal difficulties. By the same token, there are many people with disorganized attachment styles who would not meet the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder.”
