Disorganized attachment

Disorganized attachment refers to an emotional dysfunction that results when children do not develop an appropriate attachment to their parent or primary caregiver. It occurs because the caregiver is inconsistent in responding to the child’s needs or responds with anger or violence. The caregiver may also neglect to respond to the child at all. This often comes from some form of emotional dysfunction in the caregiver, who may have been the victim of neglect or abuse.

Children with disorganized attachment experience conflicting emotions with regard to the caregiver. As a result, these children do not see the caregiver as a source of comfort and safety, and either do not seek these things from the caregiver or pull away without giving the caregiver time to respond. Disorganized attachment leads to problems between the caregiver and child, and can affect the child’s relationships with others both in childhood and later in life.

Background

Attachment refers to the bond between two people. Whenever two people spend time together, they form an emotional response to each other. The bond between a parent and child is often considered one of the strongest and most important bonds. Some researchers believe that this bond developed in ancient humans to keep helpless infants close to the mothers and increase their likelihood of surviving.

Although this bond has long been recognized, it was not until the 1930s that researchers began concentrated efforts to understand how the bond developed. Psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth developed a key theory related to attachment. The theory described four key types of caregiver and child attachment. The four forms of attachment are secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized.

The majority of caregiver/child relationships fall into the secure form. This means that the child sees the caregiver as a source of comfort and reassurance. The caregiver is emotionally and physically available to the child, responds with comfort and reassurance when the child is upset, and provides a secure home base for the child to begin to explore the world. When the caregiver leaves the room, the child notices and is upset, but is easily soothed and returns to normal activities once the caregiver returns. This child comes to expect that most relationships will be like this. The child is comfortable in relationships with others, forms good emotional relationships with them, and is able to interact freely with others.

About 20 to 30 percent of caregiver/child relationships are in the avoidant category. These caregivers either do not respond to the child when the child is in need or are dismissive of the child’s needs. The caregiver is not a safe base for the child to seek when upset or tired. As a result, the child avoids becoming attached to the caregiver and may strive for independence.

Ambivalent attachment occurs in as few as 5 percent of caregiver/child relationships. The caregiver is inconsistent in responses to the child, sometimes responding but other times ignoring or responding inappropriately to what the child needs. This inconsistency causes children to become uncertain about the relationship. The child may become extra clingy or insistent on getting attention from the caregiver to resolve this uncertainty.

The final form is disorganized attachment. This form occurs in conjunction with the avoidant or ambivalent categories of attachment. There is a high level of occurrence of disorganized attachment when abuse is involved; up to 80 percent of children who have experienced abuse will exhibit disorganized attachment. The term disorganized refers to the way these children responded to their caregivers in the early attachment studies conducted by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others. The children’s responses were literally disorganized as they interacted with their caregivers, sometimes moving toward them and then pulling back. They sometimes hid or moved away from the caregivers instead of seeking them out when they returned to the room where studies were conducted.

Overview

Disorganized attachment results from the caregiver’s inability to respond appropriately to the child’s needs, such as hunger, fatigue, or pain. The caregiver may respond with anger or abuse, or may frighten the child either intentionally or unintentionally in the way he or she reacts. For instance, a father with no experience with young children who does not know how to react to a child who is crying uncontrollably may raise his voice as he asks the child what is wrong. He does this because of his own uncertainty with how to deal with the problem and his own anxiety about not being able to control the situation. To the child, however, the parent seems angry and out of control, which is scary. This causes confusion for the child, who instinctively wants to seek comfort from the father but is instead subjected to a new source of fear. This inability to resolve the fear and anxiety can cause the child to develop a disorganized attachment to the father because the child wants to seek comfort from the parent but is afraid of his reaction.

The main reason caregivers respond in ways that lead to disorganized attachment is that the caregiver has been a victim of some form of abuse or was a child who formed a disorganized attachment with his or her own caregiver. The caregiver who did not have a model of effective soothing behavior and who could not trust his or her own caregiver is not likely to have the tools to soothe a child. The dysfunctional attachment becomes a cycle from generation to generation, and children with disorganized attachment become adults who have difficulty forming relationships with others and responding to the needs of others in an appropriate manner.

Since much of the problem stems from past trauma in a relationship, experts say that coming to terms with that trauma can help adults break the cycle of disorganized attachment. Understanding the history of their situation and developing a narrative or story that allows them to face the pain of the past can help people who are affected by disorganized attachment learn how to self-soothe to make up for what they did not receive from past caregivers. The person can then develop healthier attachments to friends, romantic partners, and others who can help break the cycle of dysfunctional attachment.

Bibliography

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