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Disorganized attachment, also known as fearful-avoidant, is an insecure attachment style characterized by a fear of close relationships.

A person with a disorganized attachment style will often feel conflicted about how to behave in relationships and will use both anxious (emotional hyper-activation) and avoidant (emotional deactivation) strategies to soothe their fears.

This paradoxical behavior, unstable identity, and unpredictable mental state can have a negative impact on their ability to maintain healthy relationships.

To understand how disorganized attachment impacts relationships and how to manage this style of attachment, it is important to first understand how it develops.

The Development of Disorganized Attachment Style

Disorganized attachment develops due to certain biological predispositions (e.g., genetics and temperament) in combination with growing up in or experiencing a fear-inducing environment.

Infants have an innate drive to seek proximity to their caregivers/ attachment figures when they are distressed or frightened. However, when a caregiver is also the source of the fear, an infant intuitively wants to avoid the attachment figure.

This results in a strange situation for the child: they want and need to approach the source of fear in order to alleviate the fear. Main and Solomon (1990) refer to this as “fright without solution.”

It is important to note that disorganized attachment is not always the result of abuse or maltreatment in childhood as it is commonly believed.

Not every child who has been abused develops a disorganized attachment style, and not every individual with a disorganized attachment style was abused in childhood.

However, while a caregiver might not be abusive toward the child, they still might not be a source of safety. Parents with unresolved trauma or loss might project their distressed and volatile mental states onto their child.

For example, a study by Hughes et al. (2001) found that infants born to a mother who had previously experienced a stillbirth were more likely to develop a disorganized attachment style. These women were not abusive towards their infants, but their lingering trauma from the stillbirth impacted their ability to care for their next-born children.

Children who grow up in adverse environments are also more likely to develop signs of disorganized attachment. This can include experiences such as neglect, physical or emotional abuse, parental substance abuse, domestic violence, or other forms of significant adversity.

Potentially Frightening Parental Behaviors

Exhibiting threatening expressions or gestures toward the child
Conveying dissociative behavior (e.g., severe mood swings; showing multiple identities)
Displaying submissive behavior toward the child
Sexual and/or physically abusing the child or another member of the household
Presenting disorganized attachment behavior toward the infant (i.e., the parent has a disorganized attachment style)
Mocking or humiliating the child
Seeking reassurance from the child/ leaning on the child for emotional support
Emotionally withdrawing from the child
Leaving/separating from the child for unusually long periods of time

Signs of Disorganized Attachment in Children

There are two forms of behavior that have been observed in disorganized children which are not seen in secure, avoidant, or anxious children:

They exhibit approach and avoidant behavior towards their caregiver(s). For example, they may cry for their mother when they have been separated but once they are reunited, the infant appears to be avoidant of the mother’s touch or attempts at soothing the child.
They show fearful behavior. For example, when their caregivers approach, they display an anxious, frightened expression or body language.

Disorganized children appear to be doubtful and apprehensive of their caregivers because of these contradicting motivations: they want to approach, but because they are fearful, they also want to avoid.

These children have a heightened sensitivity to stress and are not easily comforted by their caregivers, remaining in a state of distress for extended periods of time.

As disorganized attachment continues beyond infancy, new behaviors start to emerge. These behavioral problems usually starting in later childhood and adolescence. Examples include:

Showing aggression and hostility to their caregiver (e.g., hitting the parent)
Taking on the role of the parent (i.e., controlling interactions, attempting to soothe the parent)
Withdrawing from the caregiver
Engaging in self-harm
Preferring strangers over their caregivers

It is important to be aware that all children display some degree of disorganized behaviors when they are overly tired, sick, in pain, stressed, or have a neurological disturbance.

Thus, observing disorganized behavior some of the time is not enough to classify a child as disorganized. The behavior must be consistent and meet a certain threshold of intensity.

Disorganized Attachment Signs in Adults

Like disorganized children, disorganized adults will experience conflicted emotions in relationships that vacillate between anxiety and avoidance.

Avoidant individuals tend to seek distance and independence because their caregivers were unreliable, punitive, and/or unsupportive during their childhood. They fear further rejection, and thus, disregard their need for attachment and intimacy.

Paradoxically, this fear of abandonment results in a heightened need for attachment, leading to clingy and attention-seeking behavior.

Put shortly, disorganized individuals fear abandonment and intimacy, resulting in the contradictory “approach and avoid” behavior.

They will cling to others to satisfy their need for closeness and attention, but when others get too close, they will push them away and shut down.

Their behavior is inconsistent and chaotic because the simultaneous fear of rejection and intimacy results in wanting to be close while also wanting to distance themselves.

Other signs and features of disorganized attachment in adults include:

Having an unstable sense of self (e.g., extreme mood swings; multiple or conflicting identities)
Holding inconsistent views of others and relationships with others (i.e., people are a source of fear and a source of comfort)
Having contradictory intentions regarding close relationships (i.e., wanting commitment and closeness while simultaneously downplaying the importance of intimacy)
Feeling angry and aggressive towards their rejecting and unresponsive caregivers; this anger is displayed towards attachment figures and sometimes even transferred to other “innocent” people as well
Feeling cautious and suspicious of others (especially caregivers and significant others)
Being unsure how to navigate people and relationships
Struggling with mental health concerns, such as anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and substance abuse
Engaging in misconduct
Being impulsive

Triggers of Disorganized Attachment

Relationships are triggering for disorganized individuals because they are conflicted about what they want. While they do not trust others, they also desperately want to love and to be loved.

They anticipate being hurt, disappointed, and rejected by significant others, making them hyper-vigilant to signs that the other person is going to abandon them.

When they experience a trigger, their anxious and avoidant behavior is activated. This can be very confusing and upsetting to the other person in the relationship.

However, because the threat of abandonment and rejection feels warranted to the disorganized individual, they may feel entitled to their extreme reactions.

Examples of emotional triggers for disorganized attachment include:

Any sign of rejection, distance, or abandonment (e.g., not responding to messages or phone calls; not coming home on-time; spending a lot of time away from home; seeming distant and uninterested)
Inconsistency and hot-cold behavior (e.g., texting a lot one week and then not texting at all the next)
Avoidant behaviors (e.g., shutting down communication; walking away from conversation; giving the silent treatment)
Intimacy-seeking behaviors (e.g., making plans for future commitment; romantic gestures; wanting emotional support; physical contact and intimacy; vulnerability)
Feeling criticized (either real or imagined)

While individuals with “organized” insecure attachments (e.g., avoidant and anxious) have consistent and comprehensible triggers, disorganized individuals have triggers that are incoherent and complicated because of their internal conflict.

Thus, dealing with these triggers and developing a more secure attachment requires the disorganized person to address their inner conflict and manage their anxiety and avoidance through self-regulation strategies.

Self-Regulation Strategies for Disorganized Attachment Triggers

Unfortunately, most people with disorganized attachment style have experienced a traumatic event at some point in their life. These experiences often result in identity confusion, difficulties with emotion regulation, low self-esteem, substance misuse, and mental health problems, which can precipitate future traumas.

Thus, learning how to manage your emotions and feel more secure in your relationships is essential for improving your overall quality of life and well-being.

Even when our beliefs about ourselves are negative and unhelpful, we search for information that confirms these beliefs as it makes the world seem more predictable and coherent (self-verification theory).

This often means falling into relationships with people who treat you poorly because it feels “normal” and “deserved.”

It is important to be aware that these behaviors are not your fault. Your difficulties and insecurities with attachment developed because your needs were not met early in life. These resulting thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are coping mechanisms that individuals use to deal with and alleviate emotional distress, reduce anxiety, and restore a sense of control.

The good news is that we can learn to manage our attachment insecurities by taking responsibility for our healing journey.

Although you can do a lot of this work individually, therapy is recommended for people with a disorganized attachment style.

A therapist can help you to identify your unhelpful beliefs and behaviors, examine your triggers, navigate challenges, and offer comfort.

Here is some advice on how to self-regulate your triggers and feel more confident in your life and relationships:

Practice Acceptance and Compassion

Your insecure attachment likely developed for reasons that were beyond your control. Therefore, treat yourself with compassion. Notice when you’re being self-critical or overly harsh with yourself, and instead, practice self-kindness. Be gentle and patient with yourself and treat yourself with the same kindness, understanding, and support that you would offer a close friend.

Accept where you are now and focus on finding ways to heal and move forward. When you accept yourself as you are, with both your strengths and imperfections, you will cultivate the power and motivation to transform.

Develop Self-Awareness

Without knowing and understanding your triggers, beliefs, and behaviors, you cannot change them. That’s why it’s important to develop self-awareness.

To do so, educate yourself on attachment theory and the disorganized attachment style. It will give you insight into how it develops and how it manifests across your life and in your relationships. Take time to observe your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors without judgment. Eventually, you will start to understand why you feel, think, and behave in certain ways.

You can try practicing mindfulness to cultivate present-moment awareness and non-judgmental acceptance of your thoughts and emotions. Keep a journal to notice patterns, process emotions, and keep track of your progress.

Use Grounding Techniques

When you experience an emotional trigger, an alarm goes off in your brain, activating your fight or flight response. This means your rational brain is “shut down” and you are operating in auto-pilot, reacting in unconscious ways that you have little control over.

Practicing grounding techniques consistently can help you to manage your emotions, both in general and in the moments when you are feeling triggered.

Grounding techniques include:

Breathing exercises
Progressive muscle relaxation
Meditation and yoga
Engaging and connecting with nature mindfully
Hot or cold sensory experiences (e.g., drinking hot tea or holding an ice cube in your hand)

Comfort Your Inner Child

A helpful technique to heal the wounds of the past is to mentally revisit your childhood and engage with your child-self with understanding, compassion, and support.

Because of your inconsistent, neglectful, and possibly even abusive caregiving experiences, you were not adequately acknowledged, cared for, or addressed during childhood. By comforting your inner child, you can provide a sense of validation and acceptance to your child-self.

You can revisit and reimagine past experiences from a more compassionate and supportive perspective. Tell your child-self that it was not their fault and acknowledge that it’s okay to feel sad or angry about the way you may have been treated.

Comforting your inner child can take away some of the power that the past may still have over you so you are able to step into your adult self with more confidence.

Grow Your Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

The inner conflict you experience and the instability of your emotions can make it difficult to know who you are and what you want. The back and forth between wanting others to love and support you and wanting them to leave you can be exhausting.

It is important to realize that your desire for closeness and comfort is healthy; the reason why you feel anxious and avoidant is because of fear. By working on improving your self-esteem and self-worth — either through therapy or self-reflective practices — you can learn to let go of this fear and acknowlege your need to connect with others.

Developing self-love takes time and patience, but by promoting a more cohesive sense of self, you will foster a stronger foundation for healthier attachment patterns.

You will understand that your needs are valid, you are worthy of love, and you are safe to express your emotions without judgement.

Establish and Maintain Boundaries

Here is some advice on establishing boundaries:

Identify what your values are/ what is important to you
Put everyone else’s opinions and needs aside – what do YOU need from a relationship?
Examine your relationships – what are the unhealthy aspects?
Ask yourself, what does it mean to be a healthy, independent adult?
Focus on your strengths and the things you do well
Identify and utilize your protective factors (e.g., certain relationships, social support, work, school/ university, values, problem-solving skills, etc.)
Now, think about establishing boundaries with significant others. Do you want a relationship with them? What do you want to share and not share with them? Where are your limits?

Once you have established your boundaries, you can communicate them to others when the time is appropriate. Let them know how you will respond if they do not respect your boundaries.

Remember, saying no to someone else often means you are saying yes to yourself. When you have a healthy, trusting relationship with yourself, you are much more able to have healthy relationships with other people, too.

Try Out Secure Behaviors

Once you have established a practice of self-regulation strategies, you can try implementing some secure behaviors. This will show that you are capable of managing your own emotions.

Initially, your anxiety might be quite high and you might want to withdrawal, but if you start with small changes and keep practicing, the feeling of discomfort and anxiety will subside.

When you feel triggered it can be helpful to ask yourself: how would a secure person think and behave in this situation? For example:

Talk to a loved one about how you are feeling in a calm and constructive way
When you get a sense that someone is rejecting you, ask yourself what other explanations there might be for their behavior – are they actually trying to hurt and reject you?
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes – how would you see your actions in someone else’s position?
When your emotions are starting to feel overwhelming, practice grounding techniques, go for a walk, or do something else that you enjoy
Express your needs and boundaries to someone without backtracking and without compromise
Allow someone else to support you and listen to their advice without thinking they are not interested, do not care, or have some sort of ulterior motive

Disorganized Attachment Style Traits in Relationships

Attachment theory suggests that our early relationships and childhood experiences significantly shape our social and emotional development throughout our lifespan.

Disorganized attachment is one of the three types of insecure attachment styles. It is marked by unpredictability, emotional instability, and distrust in relationships.

People with a disorganized attachment styles are typically the most difficult to have a relationship with because of their inconsistency and unpredictability.

Although it can be challenging, there are ways to build a healthy and stable relationship with disorganized individuals.

To do so, it is important for both individuals to understand the disorganized attachment style and the associated behavior. It is also helpful to know the partner’s attachment style and how it may interact with disorganized attachment.

Relationships with Disorganized Adults

The following are some of the traits and behaviors that come with being in a relationship with someone with a disorganized attachment style. It is important to remember that this is an overview; not all disorganized individuals behave and think in the same ways.

Trust Issues

Growing up with caregivers who did not feel like a source of safety and acted in unpredictable and potentially abusive ways increases the chances of a child developing trust issues. Furthermore, throughout their life, they may have had subsequent traumatic experiences that negatively impacted their ability to trust.

As a result, disorganized individuals tend to be very suspicious of their partner’s intentions and actively look for evidence of deceit and other breaches of trust. They might be jealous and scrutinize your friendships and activity on social media.

Although this comes from a place of fear and not wanting to be rejected and abandoned, it can be damaging to the health of a relationship and cause both people hardship.

Difficulties with Communication and Inconsistent Behavior

One of the main traits of disorganized attachment is simultaneously fearing abandonment and fearing intimacy. Individuals with this attachment style oscillate between acting clingy and acting avoidant.

Disorganized individuals often lack a stable sense of identity, making it difficult to access their emotions. They may struggle to know what’s real and what’s not.

This inner conflict means disorganized individuals often do not know what they need or want because it can vary from moment to moment. Their behavior tends to be inconsistent and unpredictable.

Consequently, their communication can be chaotic and difficult to follow, and partners often do not know how to help. If they do try to offer their support, they might be pushed away, but if they give their partner space, they might make their partner feel abandoned.

If their partner has an avoidant attachment style, their avoidant behavior may trigger anxious behavior in a disorganized individual (e.g., demanding attention and communication; excessively texting and calling).

If they have an anxious attachment style, their anxious behavior may trigger a disorganized individual’s need for avoidance (e.g., shutting down communication; breaking up with their partner)

Mood Swings and Difficulties Regulating Emotions

Disorganized attachment is often accompanied by extreme mood swings and difficulties with managing emotions.

One moment they might be happy, excited, and loving, and the next moment they might be hateful and somber. Or, they might have “good” weeks or months followed by a period of poor mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, social withdrawal).

This attachment style is also associated with anger, which stems from being rejected by their caregivers and using anger to cope. This anger might then be transferred to other people, especially romantic partners, who are confronted with hostile outbursts.

Growing up, these individuals likely did not learn healthy ways to manage their emotions. They also have likely experienced significant trauma which may still be unresolved. Although this might explain the causes of anger and emotional instability, it does not excuse abusive behavior.

Anxious Behavior

An anxious attachment style is characterized by a strong fear of abandonment and rejection and being highly dependent on others for reassurance. This fear can lead to clinginess, jealousy, and preoccupation within relationships.

When disorganized individuals sense rejection and abandonment, it can trigger anxious behavior as a way to cope with their fear.

Subsequently, they often need significant reassurance and attention from their partner and will become distressed if their partner can not provide this. They might overstep your boundaries and personal space in an attempt to get closer to you.

The chaotic nature of the disorganized attachment style means that when they are displaying anxious behavior, it can generate guilt and shame, and they may suddenly become hostile, uncommunicative, and/or avoidant.

Avoidant Behavior

Avoidant attachment is characterized by suppressing the need for closeness and reassurance and being highly independent. This is the result of emotional and physical rejection, which leads to a fear of intimacy and the use of avoidance as a way to cope.

Disorganized individuals also use avoidance as a way to cope, but unlike avoidant individuals, they want close relationships while also fearing them (rather than not seeking them at all).

They can be very focused on their own needs and find it difficult to empathize with others. When there is conflict or someone wants to communicate about their feelings, they might find this overwhelming and withdraw as a result.

They might also reject physical intimacy (e.g., hugging or touching) and avoid sharing how they feel or disclosing personal information.

Another common avoidance strategy is to sabotage the relationship, especially when things are going well. They might be very critical and focus on the negative aspects of the relationship, find reasons to break up, or actually break up with their partner. They might even have an affair or treat their partner in a way that makes them feel unloved and irrelevant.

Although it is usually subconscious, sabotaging behavior tends to come from wanting to confirm the beliefs they already hold about other people and relationships: that they cannot be trusted and everyone abandons them.

Dating Someone with a Disorganized Attachment Style

As discussed above, being in a relationship with a disorganized individual can be challenging and confusing. However, like everybody else, they also have positive and attractive traits so working through the difficulties can be rewarding and worthwhile for both.

The following advice is written for those in close relationships with disorganized individuals. However, for the relationship to work, it is important that both people involved work on their insecurities and behaviors and seek help if necessary.

Communication

For any relationship to work, open and effective communication is key. That means, expressing needs and problems in a calm and constructive way and actively listening.

Active listening involves:

Asking open-ended questions and listening to the response without interfering or shutting down
Validating what they are saying by asking follow-up questions, nodding, and verbally agreeing with them
Showing interest by holding eye contact, turning your body towards them, and uncrossing your arms

The aim of communication should be to find a solution, not to point fingers or cause the other person suffering. Ask yourself whether you want the relationship to work, and if your answer is yes, focus your attention on solutions, not problems.

Boundaries

An important element of looking after your health as well as the health of your relationship is to establish and maintain strong boundaries.

Disorganized people often do not have strong boundaries and may therefore expect you to not have any either. For both of you, it is a good idea to come up with behaviors that you will not tolerate and what the consequences of a boundary breach will be.

For example, if someone shouts aggressively, the other person will walk away and not communicate until the violent behavior has stopped.

Compassion and Patience

Generally, people with a disorganized attachment style are not intentionally malicious or difficult. They just have not learned how to cope with their emotions or how to feel and behave in a relationship.

Although that does not excuse them from working on their insecurities and complex behaviors, they would benefit from having a partner who shows them compassion and patience.

Remember that they want to love and be loved but struggle to express their feelings and needs clearly.

They have likely experienced a lot of trauma and would probably find it helpful to have someone who is there for them. That does not even have to involve talking; sometimes it is enough to just be in their presence and let them know that you are on their side.

Acknowledge when things are going well, focus on their positives, and tell your partner know what you like about them, as this will soothe some of their anxiety. But make sure you are also looking after your own well-being.

Therapy

It can be useful to seek the help of a couple’s therapist who can help you to navigate your relationship difficulties. They can identify unhealthy patterns and help each person communicate their needs and issues in a way that makes sense to the other person.

It is important that both partners are willing and committed to making the therapy worthwhile.

Sources

Granqvist, P. et al. (2017). Disorganized attachment in infancy: a review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers. Attachment & Human Development, 19(6), 534-558.

Hughes, P., Turton, P., Hopper, E., McGauley, G.A. & Fonagy, P. (2001). Disorganised attachment behaviour among infants born subsequent to stillbirth. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(6), 791-801.

Lyons-Ruth, K., & Jacobvitz, D. (2008). Attachment disorganization: Genetic factors, parenting contexts, and developmental transformation from infancy to adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2^nd ed., pp. 666–697). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Main, M., & Hesse, E. (2006). Frightened, threatening, dissociative, timid-deferential, sexualized, and disorganized parental behavior: A coding system for frightened/frightening (FR) parent-infant interactions. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley.

Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganized/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E. M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 121–160). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Paetzold, R., Rholes, W. & Kohn, J. (2015). Disorganized Attachment in Adulthood: Theory, Measurement, and Implications for Romantic Relationships. Review of General Psychology, 19 (2).

Disorganized Attachment Style: Traits and Ways to Cope