Disorganized Attachment Style: Traits and Ways to Cope

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 often feels conflicted about how to behave in relationships. They use both anxious (emotional hyper-activation) and avoidant (emotional deactivation) strategies to soothe their fears.

This instability extends to their sense of identity, making it harder to sustain healthy, long-term relationships.

Understanding how disorganized attachment develops is the first step to managing its effects on relationships and this style of attachment.

Key Takeaways

• A Breakdown, Not a Strategy: Disorganized attachment means a child has no consistent way to seek comfort from a caregiver who also feels frightening.
• “Fright Without Solution”: The caregiver is both a source of comfort and of fear, so approach and avoidance both fail (Main & Hesse, 1990).
• Not Always Abuse: Disorganized attachment often follows maltreatment, but many cases involve a parent’s own unresolved trauma rather than direct abuse.
• Common, Not Rare: About 15% of children in the general population show this pattern, rising to 48 to 90% where abuse or neglect is documented.
• A Risk Marker, Not a Diagnosis: Leading researchers warn against treating disorganized attachment as proof of maltreatment or as a formal attachment disorder (Granqvist et al., 2017).
• It Can Change: Disorganized attachment is relationship-specific and responds well to targeted interventions like ABC and Child-Parent Psychotherapy.

Causes

Disorganized attachment usually develops when a child’s biology (like their genetics or temperament) mixes with growing up in an environment that feels scary or unpredictable.

Babies naturally want to be close to their caregivers when they’re upset or frightened — it’s their way of feeling safe.

But what happens when the very person they turn to is also the source of their fear?

This puts the baby in a tough spot. They want to get close to the caregiver to feel better, but they also want to avoid them to stay safe.

Psychologists Main and Hesse (1990) called this “fright without solution” — a real catch-22 for the child.

Kids who have experienced abuse, neglect, or really inconsistent care are more likely to develop this kind of attachment. These tough experiences shake their sense of safety and trust in the people who are supposed to protect them.

But here’s something important: disorganized attachment isn’t always caused by abuse or maltreatment.

Not every child who was abused ends up with a disorganized attachment style, and not every person with this style was abused as a kid.

Sometimes, even if a caregiver isn’t actively harmful, they might still not feel safe to the child.

For example, parents dealing with unresolved trauma or loss might unintentionally bring their own distress into the relationship. This can make it harder for the child to feel secure.

One study found that babies born to mothers who had previously lost a child were more likely to develop disorganized attachment (Hughes et al., 2001). This was not because the mothers were abusive. Instead, their lingering trauma affected how they cared for their new baby.

Other difficult life situations, like neglect, parental substance abuse, domestic violence, or other major stresses, can also raise the risk of disorganized attachment.

What Kinds of Caregiver Behaviors Might Feel Frightening to a Child?

• Threatening looks or gestures
• Mood swings or dissociative behaviors (like seeming like different people at once)
• Acting overly submissive or scared around the child
• Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional)
• Confusing or scary behavior that mirrors the child’s own disorganized attachment
• Mocking or humiliating the child
• Leaning on the child emotionally, asking them for reassurance
• Emotionally pulling away or disappearing for long periods

What Contributes to Disorganized Attachment?

• Unresolved Trauma in Parents: Many parents of disorganized infants have their own history of trauma or loss that they haven’t fully worked through. This can make them act in ways that feel scary or unpredictable to their child.
• Direct Maltreatment: Abuse and neglect are strong risk factors. Studies show very high rates of disorganized attachment in abused children.
• Parental Mental Health and Substance Use: Conditions like bipolar disorder or addiction can cause extreme and unpredictable behavior that contributes to disorganized attachment.
• Multiple Stressors: Families facing lots of challenges, like poverty or mental health struggles, tend to have higher rates of disorganized attachment.
• Separation from a Caregiver: Children who spend long times without a consistent caregiver, such as in institutions or late adoption, often show more disorganized attachment.
• Caregiver Withdrawal: When parents emotionally pull away or avoid their child, it can lead to disorganized attachment.
• Temperament and Genetics: Some researchers think a baby’s natural temperament or genetics might play a role, but this is still debated.

Disorganized attachment tends to show up a lot more in kids who are dealing with lots of tough challenges.

For example, in the general population, about 15% of babies might have this attachment style.

But that number jumps to around 25 to 34% for families living in poverty. It can climb as high as 48 to 90% where there has been documented child abuse or neglect.

There are also some parental factors linked to disorganized attachment, like bipolar disorder or ongoing struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

These conditions can cause parents to behave in unpredictable or confusing ways, which makes it harder for the child to feel safe and secure.

Disorganized Attachment Is a Risk Marker, Not a Diagnosis

In 2017, a group of leading attachment researchers issued a consensus statement cautioning against over-interpreting disorganized attachment (Granqvist et al., 2017).

They stressed that disorganized attachment is a modest risk marker, not proof of maltreatment, and should never be the sole evidence in child-protection or legal decisions.

The statement also warned that disorganized attachment and attachment disorder are separate concepts, even though the two are frequently confused.

Despite this caution, large meta-analyses confirm the pattern still predicts real difficulties. Disorganized attachment remains the single strongest attachment-based predictor of later externalizing (conduct) problems in childhood (Fearon et al., 2010).

Signs of Disorganized Attachment in Children

Children with a disorganized attachment style often behave in ways that seem confusing or hard to explain.

You might see a child run toward their caregiver for comfort, but then suddenly stop, freeze, or look away.

Or they might reach out while leaning back or turning their head.

These behaviors aren’t just random; they reflect a deeper problem in the child’s attachment system.

Securely attached infants organise their behaviour around a clear goal: maintaining proximity to the caregiver. Disorganised infants, in contrast, show a breakdown in this organisation.

Psychologists Mary Main and Judith Solomon described this as a “breakdown of organized strategies.”

In simpler terms, the child has no clear or consistent way to get comfort from their caregiver. Often, the person they turn to for safety is also the one they fear.

Main and Solomon studied this using the Strange Situation, a structured observation where children briefly separate from and reunite with their caregiver. They identified seven common signs of disorganized attachment:

1. Contradictory behaviors shown one after the other: For example, a child might seek contact, then suddenly turn away or push the caregiver.
2. Contradictory behaviors happening at the same time: A child might reach for a hug while keeping their head averted or body turned.
3. Freezing or stilling: The child may stop moving completely, sometimes with a blank or dazed expression.
4. Disorientation: The child seems confused, aimless, or unsure what to do – especially during reunions.
5. Fearful or apprehensive responses: Some children flinch, shrink back, or look scared in the presence of their caregiver.
6. Undirected or incomplete actions: The child might start to approach and then hesitate or stop halfway.
7. Unusual postures or repetitive movements: This might look like sudden jerky movements, repetitive rocking, or odd body positions.

These behaviors can look strange. But they often reflect a painful inner conflict: the child is drawn to their caregiver for comfort, yet afraid of them at the same time.

This creates what Main and Hesse later called a “fright without solution”: a situation with no safe path forward.

Children caught in this kind of conflict often have a hard time calming down when upset. They may stay distressed for long periods and respond unpredictably to efforts to soothe them.

How It Can Evolve in Older Children

As children with disorganized attachment grow, their behaviors often change.

In middle childhood and adolescence, many begin to develop more complex, but still unhealthy, ways of coping with their internal conflict.

One common pattern is the development of controlling behaviors, which fall into two main types:

• Controlling–punitive: The child takes on a dominant or aggressive role, trying to control the caregiver through anger, criticism, or bossiness (e.g., yelling at or hitting the parent).
• Controlling–caregiving: The child reverses roles and tries to care for or soothe the parent, often becoming overly concerned with the adult’s emotional state.

Other signs that may appear as the child gets older include:

• Emotional or physical withdrawal from caregivers
• Avoiding touch or comfort, such as stiffening or pushing away during hugs
• Choosing to engage with strangers over familiar caregivers
• Looking dazed or confused during reunions after separation
• Unpredictable responses, such as being clingy one moment and distant the next

All children show some degree of disorganized behavior when they are overly tired, sick, in pain, stressed, or neurologically compromised.

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. 

Treatment

Treatment for disorganised attachment centres on improving the quality and consistency of the caregiving relationship. This often means addressing frightening, frightened, or dissociative behaviours in the caregiver, which usually stem from their own unresolved trauma.

Evidence-based interventions exist and have shown significant positive effects on reducing disorganisation and promoting more secure attachment patterns.

Disorganised attachment is not a fixed trait of the individual child. It tends to be relationship-specific: an infant may be disorganised with one parent but secure with another. It also shows only modest stability over time.

This underscores the importance of targeted interventions within the specific caregiver-child dyad.

Interventions are more effective when begun at or after 6 months, potentially coinciding with the formation of the infant’s selective attachment strategy.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC)

• What it is: A short-term home-visiting program for infants and toddlers who have experienced inconsistent or harmful caregiving.
• How it works: Coaches help parents (1) learn to follow their child’s cues and respond promptly, (2) reduce confusing or frightening behaviors (e.g., intrusiveness, harsh tone), and (3) collaborate with toddlers on managing big emotions rather than taking over.
• Why it helps: ABC strengthens sensitive, predictable interactions and reduces behaviors that trigger fear or confusion. Multiple trials grounded in Main and Hesse’s research show it improves child attachment security.

Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP)

• What it is: A year-long, relationship-based therapy for caregivers and their infants or young children, often used after traumatic or highly stressful family events.
• How it works: Through weekly sessions, a trained therapist guides the parent–child dyad to revisit and process distressing experiences together, models empathic attunement, and coaches the caregiver in protective, non-frightening responses.
• Why it helps: By directly addressing the parent’s own fears or trauma reactions and teaching consistent, nurturing responses, CPP strengthens the child’s sense of safety and reduces disorganized attachment patterns.

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

Their behavior is inconsistent and chaotic. The simultaneous fear of rejection and intimacy makes them want closeness and distance at the same time.

The Role of Fear, Confusion, and Dissociation

While fear plays a central role in disorganized attachment, it’s not the only factor.

Main and Hesse proposed that many of these behaviors are linked to problems in attention and memory, especially under stress.

When a child experiences frightening or inconsistent caregiving, their brain may struggle to process what’s happening.

This can lead to a looping or “jammed” attention system where the child can’t figure out whether to approach, avoid, or disconnect altogether.

In some cases, this looping of attention may lead to dissociation: a mental state where a person becomes disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, or surroundings.

For infants, this might look like freezing, zoning out, or suddenly stopping mid-action.

As these children grow up, they may experience dissociation more consciously, such as feeling numb, out-of-body, or confused during emotionally charged moments.

Dissociation is thought to be a key mechanism behind many of the strange and conflicted behaviors seen in disorganized attachment.

Other signs and features of disorganized attachment in adults include:

1. Having an unstable sense of self: e.g., extreme mood swings; multiple or conflicting identities.
2. Difficulty trusting others: Adults with disorganized attachment may find it challenging to trust others, often feeling suspicious or wary of people’s intentions. They hold inconsistent views of others and relationships with others (i.e., people are a source of fear and a source of comfort).
3. Unstable relationships: They may experience a pattern of intense, unstable relationships characterized by frequent breakups, conflicts, and emotional volatility.
4. Fear of intimacy: Despite craving closeness, they may fear intimacy and struggle with vulnerability, often pushing others away when relationships become too close.
5. Inconsistent behavior: Their actions and reactions may seem contradictory or unpredictable, vacillating between seeking closeness and withdrawing from others.
6. Difficulty regulating emotions: They may struggle with intense or overwhelming emotions, experience sudden mood swings, or have trouble calming down when upset.
7. Sensitivity to perceived rejection: They may be hypervigilant to signs of rejection or abandonment, often overreacting to minor cues or misinterpreting others’ actions.
8. Unresolved trauma: Many adults with disorganized attachment have a history of unresolved childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect that continues to impact their relationships and emotional well-being.
9. Difficulty with boundaries: They may struggle to set and maintain healthy boundaries in relationships, either being overly rigid or overly porous.
10. Persistent feelings of emptiness: Adults with disorganized attachment may experience chronic feelings of emptiness, loneliness, or disconnection, even when in relationships.
11. Impulsivity or reckless behavior: They may engage in impulsive or self-destructive behaviors as a way of coping with emotional pain or seeking attention.
12. Difficulty with self-reflection: They may have limited insight into their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, finding it challenging to reflect on their experiences and learn from them.
13. 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.

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)

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

Dealing with these triggers, and developing a more secure attachment, requires the disorganized person to address their inner conflict. Self-regulation strategies can help them manage their anxiety and avoidance.

Self-Regulation Strategies for Disorganized Attachment Triggers

Unfortunately, most people with disorganized attachment styles 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 them. This is because it makes the world feel more predictable and coherent, a pattern known as self-verification theory.

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

These behaviors are not your fault. Your difficulties and insecurities with attachment developed because your needs were not met early in life.

These thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are coping mechanisms. People use them to relieve 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 on 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

One helpful technique for healing past wounds is to mentally revisit your childhood. 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. Acknowledge that it’s okay to feel sad or angry about how you were treated.

Comforting your inner child can take away some of the power the past still holds over you. This lets you 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.

Your desire for closeness and comfort is healthy. Fear is the reason you feel anxious and avoidant.

Improving your self-esteem and self-worth, through therapy or self-reflective practices, helps you let go of this fear. It also helps you acknowledge 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 judgment.

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 withdraw. But if you start with small changes and keep practicing, the 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

Therapy

Here are a few different therapies that show real promise when it comes to helping with disorganized attachment:

• Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP): This therapy strengthens the parent-child relationship, helping parents tune into their child’s feelings and respond in protective, non-frightening ways. Research shows children whose parents completed CPP had better behavior years later, linked to more secure early attachment.
• Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC): ABC coaches parents to avoid harsh or scary behaviors and instead work with their children to manage tough emotions. It works by helping parents become more sensitive and responsive to their child’s cues.
• Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP): TFP helps people explore and make sense of confusing or unstable feelings about relationships, often by working through them with a therapist. This builds stronger mentalizing skills and more secure attachments.
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): DBT is another therapy that’s been effective for borderline personality disorder, especially when there’s a long-term, trusting connection with the therapist. It helps people manage intense emotions and builds skills for healthier relationships.
• General Psychotherapy: More broadly, therapy itself can help change attachment patterns. Just being in a safe, warm, and steady space where you feel heard can make a huge difference. Therapists try to stay aware of their own reactions too, especially since people with disorganized attachment might bring strong emotions into the room.

Disorganized Attachment Style 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 style 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.

Keep in mind 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 safe, and who acted in unpredictable or abusive ways, increases a child’s chances of 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, watching for signs of deceit or broken trust. They might grow jealous and scrutinize your friendships and social media activity.

This behavior comes from a fear of rejection and abandonment. But it can still damage the 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.

Partners face a real bind here: offering support may cause the disorganized person to pull away, while giving them space may feel like abandonment.

An avoidant partner’s distant behavior often triggers anxious responses in a disorganized individual, such as demanding attention or excessive texting and calling.

An anxious partner’s clinginess, in turn, can trigger the disorganized individual’s need for avoidance, such as shutting down communication or ending the relationship.

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 disorganized attachment style is chaotic. When they display anxious behavior, it can generate guilt and shame, and they may suddenly become hostile, uncommunicative, 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 to cope.

Disorganized individuals also use avoidance to cope. But unlike avoidant individuals, they still want close relationships, even while fearing them, rather than avoiding relationships altogether.

They can be very focused on their own needs and find it difficult to empathize with others.

When there is a 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 grow very critical, focus on the relationship’s negative aspects, 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.

This sabotaging behavior is usually subconscious. It tends to come from a wish to confirm the beliefs they already hold about relationships: that people cannot be trusted and everyone eventually leaves.

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.

Both of you should agree on behaviors you will not tolerate, and on the consequences of breaking a boundary.

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.

This does not excuse them from working on their insecurities and complex behaviors. But they would benefit from a partner who shows 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 be there for them and let them know you are on their side.

Acknowledge when things are going well, focus on their positives, and let your partner know what you like about them. This will help soothe some of their anxiety.

But make sure you are also looking after your own well-being.

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