Most attachment specialists believe that the disorganized attachment style is the most difficult of the three insecure attachment styles to treat because it incorporates both the anxious and the avoidant styles.
Disorganized attachment is the most extreme insecure attachment style, therapist Chamin Ajjan, M.S., LCSW, A-CBT, tells mbg. People with a disorganized attachment style have a strong desire for intimate connections but also put up walls to protect themselves from getting hurt.
Known as disorganized attachment style in adulthood, the fearful avoidant attachment style is thought to be the most difficult. Sadly, this insecure attachment style is often seen in children that have experienced trauma or abuse.
Individuals high in anxious attachment are more likely to engage in emotional manipulation and other harmful behaviors intended to prevent a partner from leaving the relationship, which in turn is linked to reduced relationship satisfaction, according to new research published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.
Reactive attachment disorder is a rare but serious condition in which an infant or young child doesn't establish healthy attachments with parents or caregivers.
Unhealthy attachment styles are characterized by insecurity, anxiety, and difficulty forming trusting relationships, while secure attachment types tend to feel comfortable with emotional intimacy and are able to form trusting and supportive relationships with others.
The three types of insecure attachment are anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant, which are also known in children as ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized.
Narcissists have an “avoidant” attachment style and most people who are strongly affected by a narcissist are of the “anxious” attachment style.
Some studies showed that differences in attachment styles seem to influence both the frequency and the patterns of jealousy expression: individuals with the preoccupied or fearful-avoidant attachment styles more often become jealous and consider rivals as more threatening than those with the secure attachment style [9, ...
According to psychologists, people with avoidant attachment styles are individuals uncomfortable with intimacy and are therefore more likely to multiply sexual encounters and cheat.
Adults with an anxious/preoccupied attachment style might think highly of others but often suffer from low self-esteem. These individuals are sensitive and attuned to their partners' needs, but are often insecure and anxious about their own worth in a relationship.
Individuals with an anxious attachment style are characterized with: Being clingy. Having an intensely persistent and hypervigilant alertness towards their partner's actions or inactions.
Both avoidant and anxious attachment are both insecure types of attachment. Just over 50% of people are securely attached to their partner. The securely attached are the least likely to be unfaithful as they do not worry about their partner straying or the strength of the relationship.
AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS
People with an avoidant attachment style can come across as selfish, appearing to put their own needs in front of their partner's needs.
Avoidant Attachment: less likely to fall in love and more likely to engage in casual sex. Adults with an avoidant attachment style typically have a deactivated attachment system. Avoidant individuals do not seek proximity and intimacy, avoid the display of emotions, and appear distant and cold.
There are four principles of attachment theory - secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganized attachment. People with an anxious attachment style are more likely to struggle with self-doubt, fall in love quickly and carry a strong fear that their partner will leave them.
Although it is a spectrum of four styles, common parlance refers to only three: anxious, avoidant and secure. Studies show that people who are securely attached have the healthiest relationships, and it's the type that everyone should strive for.
Although anyone can do it, love bombing is most often associated with people who have an anxious or insecure attachment style or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
The Attachment Style of Children of Narcissists
Children of narcissists are most likely to have a disorganised attachment style. People with NPD have usually come from a home with at least one parent with NPD and therefore they are also likely to have disorganised attachments.
Love avoidants are often narcissistic, self-important and self-involved. By being focused on himself, he is able to avoid becoming closer to his partner.
Fearful-Avoidant, aka Disorganized Attachment
The fearful-avoidant attachment style is the rarest, and "develops when the child's caregivers — the only source of safety — become a source of fear," according to the Attachment Project, an attachment style education site.
You feel that you cannot live without them
If you feel a never-ending spiral of negative thoughts and emotions (including suicidal thoughts) at the idea of being without your partner, you have an unhealthy emotional attachment.
Attachment can become toxic if you rely too much on others to satisfy emotional needs. The goal of healthy emotional attachment is finding a balance between getting your emotional needs met by yourself and by others.