Blog Post
Disorganised Attachment in Adult Relationships
Myira Khan • Jun 19, 2020
How our attachment pattern, created in childhood, shows up in our adult relationships.
Disorganised Attachment in Adult Relationships
Attachment refers to the particular way in which you relate to other people.
It is the way in which we perceive and respond to intimacy in a relationship.
Your style of attachment and attachment pattern was formed during the first two years of your life.
This pattern was created from the repeated experience of an attachment and relationship style your mother or primary care-giver gave you during those first 2 years of life.
What that experience of relating was and how emotionally available, predictable and consistent your mother / primary caregiver was or was not, results in a relationship and attachment pattern being established, experienced and internalised by the infant. This becomes the attachment pattern and relationship blueprint repeated in subsequent relationships.
Once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out today in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children.
Understanding your style of attachment is helpful because it offers you insight into how you felt and developed your understanding of relationships in your childhood and how these unconscious relationship and attachment patterns play out now in your adult relationships, particularly in your intimate partner relationships.
The Disorganised Attachment pattern is created from a relationship where:
• The caregiver is abusive towards the infant, who experiences physical and emotional cruelty and frightening behaviour as being life-threatening.
• The infant is caught in a dilemma where survival instincts are telling them to flee to safety but safety is also the parent who is terrifying.
• The caregiver is the source of distress.
• The infant disassociates from 'self', detaching from what is happening and what they are experiencing is blocked from their consciousness.
In adulthood a Disorganised Attachment pattern is repeated in current adult and partner relationships.
Attachment refers to the particular way in which you relate to other people.
It is the way in which we perceive and respond to intimacy in a relationship.
Your style of attachment and attachment pattern was formed during the first two years of your life.
This pattern was created from the repeated experience of an attachment and relationship style your mother or primary care-giver gave you during those first 2 years of life.
What that experience of relating was and how emotionally available, predictable and consistent your mother / primary caregiver was or was not, results in a relationship and attachment pattern being established, experienced and internalised by the infant. This becomes the attachment pattern and relationship blueprint repeated in subsequent relationships.
Once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out today in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children.
Understanding your style of attachment is helpful because it offers you insight into how you felt and developed your understanding of relationships in your childhood and how these unconscious relationship and attachment patterns play out now in your adult relationships, particularly in your intimate partner relationships.
The Disorganised Attachment pattern is created from a relationship where:
• The caregiver is abusive towards the infant, who experiences physical and emotional cruelty and frightening behaviour as being life-threatening.
• The infant is caught in a dilemma where survival instincts are telling them to flee to safety but safety is also the parent who is terrifying.
• The caregiver is the source of distress.
• The infant disassociates from 'self', detaching from what is happening and what they are experiencing is blocked from their consciousness.
In adulthood a Disorganised Attachment pattern is repeated in current adult and partner relationships.
This shows up as an Adult who:
• Is fearful-avoidant attachment pattern
• Is detached from self as adult
• Experiences repressed feelings as if in the present relationship, as reliving an old trauma
• Has no coherent sense of self or clear connection with others
Relationship and Attachment patterns is also the theme for our upcoming Grow To Glow June Book Group on Thursday 25th June at 6pm. To register for the Book Group, please email myira@myirakhancounselling.co.uk to reserve your place.
#relationships #attachment #attachmentpatterns #attachmenttheory #childhood #emotions #emotionalavailability #relationshipcoaching #marriage #partnership #intimacy #avoiance #anxiousattachment #avoidantattachment
Follow Grow To Glow on Twitter @growtoglow_flow and on Instagram @growtoglow.flow
• Is detached from self as adult
• Experiences repressed feelings as if in the present relationship, as reliving an old trauma
• Has no coherent sense of self or clear connection with others
Relationship and Attachment patterns is also the theme for our upcoming Grow To Glow June Book Group on Thursday 25th June at 6pm. To register for the Book Group, please email myira@myirakhancounselling.co.uk to reserve your place.
#relationships #attachment #attachmentpatterns #attachmenttheory #childhood #emotions #emotionalavailability #relationshipcoaching #marriage #partnership #intimacy #avoiance #anxiousattachment #avoidantattachment
Follow Grow To Glow on Twitter @growtoglow_flow and on Instagram @growtoglow.flow
My internal therapist and supervisor helping me to work out why-dunnit!
Working within Diversity - the term, concept and model - coined by Myira Khan, September 2020
What are your goals, your dreams, your ambitions? Then go and work on those. That is your focus. All else is wasted effort towards someone else's agenda. #MondayMotivation #focus #wellbeing #selfcare #agenda #motivation #goals #dreams #ThinkBig #ShineBright
