A question that I keep being asked when I am talking to people on stage around the world is: What should I do about my disorganized attachment? What people are calling “Disorganized Attachment” is one of the most tormenting and painful things that a human being can experience. And very few experts actually understand it. So, let’s look at disorganized attachment from a different perspective and also explain what you can do about it.

First let me explain very briefly what disorganized attachment is. Attachment theory was pioneered by John Bowlby. He sought to understand the emotional bonds between people, most especially between parent and child, which sets the foundation for all subsequent relationships. In this research, he recognized the difference between secure and insecure bonds, basically secure vs. insecure attachments. He identified and was focused on three main styles of attachment. Secure, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant. To give you a fly-by of these types of attachments, someone with secure attachment feels secure in their relationship with other people and due to this, they aren’t clinging desperately to the other person for fear of abandonment, nor are they pushing the other person away to avoid pains that may come with closeness or the attempt to get closeness, such as enmeshment or consistent dismissal or rejection etc. Because of this, they observed that a person with secure attachment appears to be happy with both intimacy and autonomy. Someone with anxious-ambivalent attachment does not feel secure in their relationships with other people. Specifically, they have learned the other person will “go away” from them in any number of ways. Remember that you can abandon people in way more ways that just physically. And so, they fear abandonment and as a result, cling to the other person for dear life and experience autonomy as aloneness. They need constant reassurance of the security in the relationship. Someone with avoidant attachment also does not feel secure in their relationship with other people. Specifically, they have learned that closeness brings about pain, such as enmeshment with a parent or consistent disappointment or consistently being dismissed or the experience of emotional unavailability or rejection. And so, they tend to keep people emotionally at an arm’s length or push people away, be uncomfortable with intimacy and avoid close relationships. 

In the 1980s, a woman named Mary Main and her colleagues came in on the foundations that Bowlby laid and identified a fourth style of attachment. They called this disorganized attachment. With disorganized attachment, it was observed that a person displays a mix of both of the insecure attachment styles, anxious and avoidant. So, let’s dive into what disorganized attachment actually is. 

If a caregiver is attuned to a child, is sensitive and responsive to their feelings, is responsive to their needs and behaves in a way that is in-alignment with the best interests of the child, the child learns they can trust and rely on this person. Their caregiver starts to equal safety. A secure attachment is formed. If this does not happen, and a child learns that he or she cannot trust and rely on their caregiver. The caregiver does not equal safety. An insecure attachment is formed.      

At its core, disorganized attachment is a split relative to the bond you have with other people. A split between the aspect of you that is terrified of loss of connection, including abandonment and that desperately wants to feel securely bonded. And on the other hand, the aspect of you that has learned other people are dangerous and you must protect yourself from them. The core experience that creates this split is really about one thing: Being hurt by and therefore terrified of the very person that you are bonded to. It happens as a result of adverse childhood experiences with the person a child should be able to trust. Bonds are how people feel safe. This is true of adults, and especially true of children. So, a disorganized attachment happens when a child’s only source of safety – their parent/caregiver is also a source of danger, pain and/or fear. 

A person learns from their caregivers, such as parents, whether people in general are safe or not. They learn what to expect in their relationships with other people what they experienced with their parents. So, these early relational experiences lay the foundation for all future relationships. It isn’t like a person who develops disorganized attachment with their parents simply gets into a relationship with someone as an adult and is secure in that relationship. Rather, their relationships tend to be a confusing, contradictory mess of unpredictable and brief moments of the feeling of security dispersed in a chaotic, unpredictable hell of swinging between a) closeness and clinging in desperation for security and safety. And b) feeling like the very person you are bonded to and were just a minute ago either secure with or desperate for closeness with is dangerous in some way now and so, you are willing to chew your own arm off to self-preserve. 

So, what should you do if this is you? Recognize that the trauma you experienced caused a split in your consciousness. Trauma fragments us. We end up developing an aspect of ourself that can protect us and an aspect of us that is in need of that protection. In the case of disorganized attachment, the unsafety you experienced left you with two contradictory impulses and even two contradictory safety strategies. If you want to learn more about this, you can watch my video titled: Fragmentation, The Worldwide Disease. You need to start to relate to what is happening with you through the lens of it being a split. If you know you have a split, then you know that depending on what is happening in any given moment, things like how the other person is behaving, what they are saying or what thoughts you may be thinking in response to something you heard or saw or started worrying about, these splits will become more or less activated. 

To give you an example, maybe you and your partner had a really, long, bonding talk. You may experience a matter of hours where you feel secure. The aspect of you that protects you from the danger of other people and gets you away from them (what many call your avoidant split) is totally inactive. The aspect of you that clings desperately for fear of loss of that bond and the loss of the safety of them is also not very active. The fact that you feel good in the relationship may activate a tiny bit when you think the occasional worrying thought in those hours about them dying or something. But neither is “up”. However, uh-oh, the next morning you found out that your partner broke their word with you. You can’t trust that. Your avoidant aspect gets totally triggered. You know what happened when people broke their word with you before. This demonstrates that they don’t care about your best interests. Your insecure aspect also gets activated because this part of you knows that this is gonna be a conflict and that if there may not be resolve, you can’t face being alone and losing your partner. You argue with your partner, in this conversation the things they are saying and their body language indicate that they don’t even see they hurt you. Oh no. They are even more dangerous. Avoidant is even more activated. It continues. At one point they say something so painful that you are so escalated that your avoidant split has either decided to get in a car and get you as far away from your partner as possible or to say something to destroy their self-esteem entirely. You are willing to destroy the relationship. Its weird, you actually feel like you’d be totally fine without them. But when you leave, or say the thing you were gonna say, you feel the loss of them. You panic. Abandonment terror triggered. Now the situation flips and your anxious attachment aspect is level twelve activated. You’re desperate to get closeness with them again. You suddenly do and say things that cause your partner to come around and hold you. This causes a flare in your avoidant aspect. What if this means they don’t take me seriously and break their word again? Relative to your partner, it feels like you are thirsty for poisoned water emotionally. It is VERY hard for you to feel emotionally stable because of this obviously. Many people would say you can’t “regulate yourself emotionally.” It may take days for you to stop this chaotic, violent, swinging between these parts of you. Things eventually get to a place where you are feeling secure again. For a bit. But then, you look at your partner, you think “oh my god, she’s so pretty or he’s so handsome”. And then have this fear that because of it, they may leave you. Bam, anxious split activated again. But then, two hours later, you feel like your partner is doing something that is overstimulating you. They don’t respond to this overstimulation by stopping what they are doing. This is unsafe. Your avoidant gets activated. It needs to get you away from them. So, you go upstairs and hide in your closet to get away. But in there, your anxious split realizes you really want them to come find you. You get the point. Now you get the chaos. 

You can address this split within yourself in a very direct way by doing parts work. When you do this, you can choose to go into either 1) The part of me that is my avoidant in relationships. And 2) The part of me that is my anxious-ambivalent in relationships. OR 1) The part of me that is in charge of keeping me safe from the very people who I need for security and 2) The part of me that needs people for security and is terrified of them going away emotionally, mentally or physically. To learn how to do parts work, you can watch my video titled: Parts Work, What Is Parts Work and How To Do It. You can also seek out someone to facilitate this parts work with you. You can find a practitioner who specializes in parts work by going to www.CompletionProcess.com. There are also several other modalities that include parts work that you can look to for facilitation such as voice dialogue, internal family systems or gestalt therapy etc.  The goal of doing this is to create integration and alignment between these parts of you, which are in a painful relationship with each other which doesn’t work. And a better strategy for safety in relationships with people.

When it applies to real time (one or both aspects of this split are activated) scenarios, the key is to consistently remember to observe yourself. Watch these reactions you are having, the thoughts you are thinking and what you are having the impulse to say and do. See them for what they are in the moment. For example, here I am, feeling like running away, burning hot with fear and fury, having this violent impulse to threaten to leave my partner. Here is my avoidant split. It is designed to protect me and then specify how it is trying to go about this ie: By taking me away from the other person, who I see as dangerous at this moment or by threatening this person so as to dominate them. And here I am, even in this argument, where I had the impulse to leave my partner two seconds ago, my partner mentioned having to go to the store and now I have a lump in my throat, my heart is racing, I feel so uneasy. I can’t stand the idea of them getting hit by a car or something. I’m thinking thoughts about the worst-case scenario. This is my anxious split. It is desperately clinging for fear of abandonment. It is trying to protect me from loss of the relationship. And then specify how it is doing this. “ie: thinking of the worst case scenario, so I can prevent it or agreeing to things that I know will please my partner, so the rupture can end. 

Recognize that what you are feeling regardless of which split is active, is unsafety. And if the feeling of unsafety is too extreme (basically if you’re too dysregulated) the focus needs to be on calming down your nervous system. Use 2 different nasal breathing pattern exercises. You breathe both in and out your nose. You can pick whichever feels best to you at a given time. The first is the 4-6-8 breath. For this breathing pattern, you breathe in for the count of four seconds, hold your breath at the top of that inhale for six seconds, and breathe out for the count of eight seconds. And the second breathing pattern is the box breath. For this breathing pattern, you breathe in for the count of four seconds, hold at the top of the inhale for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds and hold again at the end of the exhale for four seconds. With these breathing patterns, do them for whatever duration feels comfortable and effective for you. You’re looking to do what causes a physiological de-escalation. It helps to close your eyes and just be still for a while. It may help to splash or submerge your face in cold water, or use a cold ice pack on the back of your neck and chest for a few minutes. 

Then, watch what any part that is active is thinking and doing within you and from this objective perspective, lovingly respond to it. Think about doing this like helping a person that is triggered as hell. Perhaps like a loving parent or advocate or therapist might. The goal is to make this chaotic, subconscious and automatic process happening within you as conscious as possible. And with this, consciously decide upon what the actual (not knee-jerk) best thing is to say or do in the situation at hand to be in alignment with your values and with what you really want most.  

If you are in a relationship, your actual need is to have the relationship become stronger, safer and more secure. If you love the other person, you want them to feel safe and good. One of the hardest things to do, is to remember this when you are triggered into feeling like the other person is so dangerous, they feel more like an enemy than someone that you love. 

There is a common reason for this, which has to do with fragmentation. Let me explain why you can go from feeling in one minute like the person you are with is literally the safest, most amazing partner in the world one minute. And then the next, like they are the devil, sent to destroy you and you have no access to how you felt before. Just like when you are in lovey mode, you can access how you felt about them when they made you feel unsafe. The reason is that you can think of these splits within you like compartments. All kinds of things can be sorted into and stored in these compartments. Memories, feeling states, perspectives about people etc. And so, when one split is active, you may feel like you only have access to bad memories about your partner and the feeling of emotional neglect, anything that fits with the avoidant. Yet when the other is active, you may notice that you only have access to adoring thoughts about them and good memories and fuzzy feelings, anything that fits with the anxious-ambivalent. It is very consistent with what many psychologists call splitting. If both are active at the same time, it’s like a roller coaster from hell of being flooded with things from each compartment. This is why people with disorganized attachment display such a disorganized mix of contradictory feelings, thoughts and behaviors in their relationships. 

But back to it, observing and becoming aware of what is happening when either split is activated, allows you to respond to what is going on within yourself, rather than be only in the subjective experience of and at the mercy of either part. It puts you in the position to choose what to do consciously. And remember that when it comes to these parts, it is all about safety. You want to feel safe and secure, especially in your relationship. So, are you genuinely unsafe? If so, how? To the contrary, how might you be safe? You need to question your perception of unsafety to figure out if the other person is genuinely a threat or not. You need to feel safety. What is the best, most direct way to actually achieve a feeling of safety in this situation, especially knowing that a move in one direction, is likely to trigger the other split into activation? Also, if you want safety and security in a relationship, it can’t only be up to the other person to become safe and give them security. You need to behave in a way that makes the other person safe and secure with you. So, consider whether you are behaving in a way that makes the other person safe or not. It takes some practice, but at first you will not even realize that one of these parts has activated and taken over, you’ll just be in it, doing what you always do when this happens. As you practice more, you will realize it when you have already been “in it” for a while and when you do, snap out of the automatic pilot of it. As you practice more, you will eventually notice the second the activation starts happening and not even be taken away by the thoughts and feelings or slip into the behaviors at all. 

Here is an example of how this might look: Imagine that I am a woman my boyfriend left me to do everything for a potluck dinner and didn’t lift a finger. Say that I start noticing that I am getting this feeling in my body like I am ready to rip him to shreds. Maybe I see a violent image of doing something to him. I may realize “wait – I recognize this. Look… the reality is that he is my boyfriend. Am I actually seeing him as my partner right now… no, I feel like he is a monster. This means my avoidant split is activated.” So, I observe myself. I observe thoughts like: “Oh my god, this ass hole just walked into my life so he could make me responsible for him too, as if I don’t have enough pressure already.” And I watch my impulses to take a glass of water and go over to where he is on the couch and throw it in his face. And I watch how I feel like I am full of some kind of acid inside, which is making me writhe on an emotional level. I watch my mind kick up memories of other times that he has been passive and let me carry the weight of the responsibility. I keep getting more and more escalated against him and against the relationship. I am seeing that I am in a “mode”. So, I remember that what is actually happening is that I am feeling unsafe. Funny, I wouldn’t have even realized that this is the feeling of unsafety. Ok. I’m sitting on the couch. I’m putting an icepack on the back of my neck. I feel less intense. I’m starting an internal dialogue. I’m asking myself the question - What am I rally afraid of? Being leeched off of by a man. Ok. Is he leeching off of me, how is he leeching and how is he not leeching? Well… he pays the bills. He walks the dog. I just feel like he leaves me to initiate everything else or tell him to do it, or do it myself. I watch myself think the thought, “Another man wouldn’t do this to me.” Do I really want to just get rid of him because he has proven to act passive often, because I can do that… But is that what I really want? No. Ok… So, what do I want? I want him to do his part. Can I define what his part is? I want him to initiate carrying responsibilities. Not just give him assignments. Ok, I’m going to write him a letter specifically about this fear and why this is painful to me and about specifically what I need him to do. Or… I’m going to put it in his hands to figure out how he can keep me safe from feeling like I am carrying him and initiating everything. I think he also really needs to be reminded that my love language is acts of service. Then, I do this. I hand him the letter. Based on his reaction, the process continues. The process of consciously observing myself, having an internal dialogue with myself and consciously responding to what is happening, so I can feel safety/security and so that I am acting for the relationship, rather than against it. Keep in mind that this is a very simplified example of what to do. When unsafety aspects are activated, it will feel harder to do than this, ad that isn’t a “you problem”.             

Keep in mind that people’s avoidants may show up in different, less escalated ways than this. It is simply a part of a person that keeps them safe from the very person that they are bonded to, in whatever way they perceive they are being made unsafe. So, imagine that a person goes into a self-esteem crisis, they may start to panic about losing their partner because they will be rejected. This anticipatory threat may make their avoidant part come up and suddenly they are emotionally distant and cold. Suddenly they are coming up with projects to do away from their partner. They may be totally emotionally suppressing, or they may feel tons of anxiety because their anxious part cannot deal with the very loss that the avoidant part of them is actively pre-emptively bringing about the loss of. What’s important to know, no matter how your avoidant part may manifest is that avoidant parts go against the relationship.         

Because disorganized attachment is a safety specific issue, you might benefit by watching three of my videos: The first is, How to Feel Safer. The Second is: How To Create a Safe Relationship and the third is: Trust, What Is Trust and How To Build Trust In Relationships.

A disorganized attachment is the byproduct of relational trauma. And what is damaged in relationship must be healed in relationship. This means that what you need to experience is being able to be and feel safe in a relationship. Part of why it has felt so hard to solve your disorganized attachment is because healing it requires the other person/people to be willing and active participants in ensuring your wellbeing and safety. And you are in a world where most people have not learned how to do this. You live in the era of relationship idiocy. So, it’s a bit like the blind leading the blind. What you can work with, is people wanting to master relationship and being committed to this, like with actual effort. And in this, wanting to master mutual caring for the other’s wellbeing and safety. A big part about this is about strategizing safe, rather than unsafe ways to meet your relational needs within relationships. The bottom line is, you aren’t going to fix a disorganized attachment quickly. It is a rehabilitation process regarding safety in a relationship with another person, and eventually more than one person. And in this rehabilitation process, there will be parts you play and parts the other person must play and occasionally setbacks and repairs. The thing is, in this process, you are learning that you can be safe with others and that others care about your lived experience enough to adjust so that it can feel good for the first time in your life. You are co-creating an experience that you have no strong reference for yet. And there are many steps on that road. And you must keep in mind, there is a difference between a person who will not actually caretake your best interests because they are dedicated to their own best interests and are willing to harm you to do so. And someone who really does want to caretake your best interests and isn’t ok with screwing your best interests for their own, but who doesn’t perfectly understand yet how to do that dance. You need people in your life who demonstrate consistent effort to build and keep your trust. People who demonstrate a desire for you to feel good and safe and who therefore put effort towards finding win-wins. People who take feedback about your experience seriously and who are responsive to you. People who put effort towards making the relationship feel secure. It takes two to build safety in a relationship.  

The process of healing disorganized attachment, especially in a world where people do not excel at making each other safe, is not easy. But, contrary to how it feels, it can be done. I’ve seen it done. And the more conscious you are of what is actually occurring with it, the smoother that process will be.