Understanding Disorganized Attachment: From Chaos to Connection
Disorganized attachment, also known as fearful-avoidant attachment, is often considered the most complex and challenging attachment style. It blends traits of both anxious and avoidant patterns and typically stems from early relational experiences that were both a source of comfort and fear. In adult relationships, this can lead to a confusing mix of longing for intimacy while simultaneously fearing it.
Origins of Disorganized Attachment
Disorganized attachment often begins in childhood when a caregiver is both a source of love and fear. For example, a child may turn to a parent for comfort but also experience neglect, emotional unpredictability, or even abuse from that same parent. The child’s brain doesn’t know how to organize its response to this mixed message—hence the term “”disorganized.””
This attachment pattern can also be influenced or compounded by other significant relationships outside of the home, such as:
● Coaches or teachers in high-pressure environments who are inconsistent—encouraging and affirming one day, critical or shaming the next.
● Romantic partners during adolescence or early adulthood who are emotionally abusive, neglectful, or hot-and-cold.
● Peers who alternated between inclusion and rejection, especially in identity-forming years.
Even someone who began with a secure attachment style can develop disorganized traits after prolonged exposure to trauma or instability in important relationships.
Traits in Adulthood
As an adult, someone with disorganized attachment may:
● Crave closeness but feel panicked when it’s offered.
● Alternate between emotional extremes—being overly invested one moment and completely withdrawing the next.
● Struggle with trust, even with partners who are consistently kind.
● Experience heightened sensitivity to rejection or abandonment.
● Feel internal chaos, confusion, or emotional overwhelm in close relationships.
Strengths of the Disorganized Attachment Style
Despite these challenges, there are also innate strengths:
● High empathy: Often having survived intense emotional landscapes, these individuals tend to be deeply empathic.
● Resilience: Their history may have required significant internal coping skills and adaptability.
● Desire for depth: People with this style are often intensely introspective and crave meaningful connection, even if it’s hard to hold.
The First Step Toward Security
The first step toward healing disorganized attachment is building self-awareness without self-blame. This involves recognizing your patterns and understanding that your behaviors are rooted in past protective strategies, not flaws.
This step is critical because shame often drives the avoidant or chaotic tendencies—if you can’t name what’s happening, you can’t begin to change it. Compassionate self-awareness lays the foundation for deeper work and new ways of relating.
Deep Healing: Modalities for Transformation
Because disorganized attachment often stems from trauma, healing typically requires more than just insight. Modalities that work well include:
● Parts work/IFS (Internal Family Systems): Helps differentiate and understand the wounded inner parts that learned to protect you.
● EMDR or Brainspotting: Targets the neurobiological imprint of trauma so your brain can process and integrate it.
● EFIT (Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy): Builds emotional regulation and secure connection within the therapeutic alliance.
● Somatic therapies: Help your body unlearn fear responses and develop a sense of safety.
● Ketamine with therapy integration: Can allow access to otherwise unreachable emotional material in a supportive, therapeutic environment.
These approaches not only work to heal old wounds but allow for new relational patterns to form.
Goals and Growth Toward Secure Attachment
The goal for someone with disorganized attachment isn’t perfection—it’s progress and presence. Some markers of growth include:
● Being able to stay present in moments of emotional intensity.
● Building trust slowly but intentionally with safe people.
● Practicing vulnerability without immediately shutting down.
● Cultivating inner stability, even if your partner is emotionally distant or expressive.
Becoming a secure partner for yourself means creating a reliable internal world—where your needs, boundaries, and values are honored. For your romantic partner, it means showing up consistently, communicating your needs, and owning your triggers without blaming them.
Why These Changes Matter
Partners of those with disorganized attachment can often feel confused, exhausted, or hurt by the mixed signals and emotional highs and lows. As you move toward security, you give your partner the gift of consistency, communication, and clarity. That creates room for deeper intimacy, mutual healing, and true partnership.
But just as important: you deserve love and support, too.
Even if your attachment isn’t yet secure—even if you sometimes push away the people you love or question whether you’re lovable—you are still worthy of a relationship that feels safe, kind, and reciprocal. Healing your attachment style isn’t about becoming lovable; it’s about allowing yourself to fully receive the love that’s already available to you.
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If this post on disorganized attachment resonated with you, consider exploring these questions in therapy, journaling, or a trusted relationship:
● In what situations do I notice conflicting feelings of wanting connection but also feeling afraid or unsure?
● How do I typically respond when I feel overwhelmed or unsafe in relationships? Are there patterns of pushing away or clinging that I recognize?
● What early experiences might be influencing how I relate to others now, and how might I begin to reframe those memories with compassion?
● When I feel triggered, what strategies help me come back to a sense of safety and calm?
● What would feeling secure in a relationship look like for me, and what small steps can I take toward building that?
Stay tuned for our next post, which will explore Secure Attachment in depth.
Doing the Work Together
At Restored Counseling & Wellness Center, we help individuals and couples heal attachment wounds with care, clarity, and evidence-based tools. Whether you’re moving through old patterns on your own or within a relationship, we’re here to support your journey toward connection and secure love. You don’t have to do this alone.
Restored Counseling & Wellness Center
633 E. Ray Rd. Ste 131
Gilbert, AZ 85296
Phone: 480-256-2999
Text: 480-256-2829
Email: info@restoredcw.com
Book an appointment: https://restoredcw.com/contact/