Disorganized attachment: what it is, how it develops, and how it is treated

During childhood, all boys and girls are vulnerable and directly depend on the closest adults, who are usually their parents.

The warmth of a mother's hug, the caresses of a father, the words of support for having made a beautiful Drawing and other actions that may seem trifling are essential for the correct emotional development of the child. child.

Unfortunately, however, many children are victims of abuse, which will mark them for life and determine the relationship they will have with their caregivers. This is common in those who show disorganized attachment., a type of bond in which aggressiveness and insecurity are very present and which we will see in more detail below.

• Related article: "The 7 types of emotional attachment (and psychological effects)"

Disorganized attachment: what is it?

Disorganized attachment is one of four types of attachment, characterized by having a threatening relationship between caregiver and infant, in which parents or caregivers behave unpredictably. Within Bowlby's attachment theory, attachment is understood as the bond established between the child and his caregivers. This link acquires great importance, since it determines how psychologically adjusted the child will be when becoming an adult in the future.

In the case of disorganized attachment, the baby has been raised in an environment that is very hostile to it, where there is always aggressiveness in the form of both physical and psychological abuse and, sometimes, there may also be abuse sexual. These types of experiences, already very bad in themselves, are lived in a particularly hard way during childhood, producing a very strong internal imbalance in the boy or girl.

The infant, who is a victim of her own parents or caregivers, also depends on them. He cannot run away from the situation because, in addition to not having the means to do so, he could not afford it either. The boy, by nature, knows that he cannot live without his caretaker, so he tries to get as close to him, even though she knows that he will receive harm.

Although it is possible that in the face of the attacks he starts to scream, it is possible that this will only bring him more abuse, causing him to reach the point where he evades reality. He dissociates and, thus, enduring the damage coming from those who should protect him from any threat, the child manages to survive, since, although harmful, she receives the attention of her parents of him

Characteristics of children with this type of attachment

There are several characteristics of children who have developed disorganized attachment. They manifest several problems on an emotional level, and it is also possible to see some psychomotor and cognitive deficits.

1. Erratic behavior with caregivers

Children who are constantly abused by their parents live in a constant dilemma. On the one hand, they need to receive care and attention from their parents, but on the other, they tend to want to get away from them.

This causes the child to behave in an apparently contradictory way. For example, at one point he may start crying inconsolably, looking for her parents, and then he attacks them.

2. Fear of caregivers

Children who have been mistreated by their own parents or close adults end up developing an obvious fear of them. Having experienced a situation of abuse of any kind can contribute to the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

However, it must be said that there will not always be disorganized attachment due to a relationship with abuse. Sometimes, living with parents with an unstable educational style in which the infant is not taken into account is enough for this type of attachment to occur.

Whatever contributes to this, the ultimate consequence is that the child ends up associating the image of his parents with sadness, discomfort, and self-blame.

• You may be interested in: "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Causes and Symptoms"

3. Fear of exploring and phobias

Children who have developed this type of attachment do not dare to discover the world in which they live, for fear of finding more people to hurt them or making mistakes that will later be punished by their own parents.

This fear of exploring, in addition to being detrimental to their cognitive development because it deprives them of new stimuli, can go further, transforming into multiple types of phobias.

4. Dissociation

Especially when they are experiencing an episode of abuse, children with disorganized attachment they end up dissociating, that is, they lose contact with reality.

This occurs because they cannot run away from the situation, but they cannot change it either, and since they depend on their parents, their mind carries out this dissociation as a defense mechanism.

5. hypervigilance

They are constantly on alert to avoid as much as possible a possible aggression or aversive situation.

6. cognitive problems

these little verbally express themselves poorly, in a disorganized and redundant manner when talking. In addition, they present attention, memory and concentration deficits and, related to post-traumatic stress, there is interference in their mind in the form of flashbacks of the abuse episodes.

7. Low self-esteem

Typically, these types of children associate abuse with the idea that they are bad and deserve it, that their parents are really punishing them for having done things wrong and that they have not learned their lesson.

Their feeling of guilt is very great, and related to the fear of exploring, they do not dare to try new experiences for fear of making mistakes and suffering another bad situation as a consequence deals.

Consequences upon reaching adulthood

Upon reaching adulthood, who lived a disorganized attachment relationship with their caregivers manifests a series of characteristics that, in a certain way, reflect the type of bond that she lived in his childhood.

They are adults who present serious difficulties when it comes to identifying the emotions and thoughts of others. But not only do they feel confused when it comes to understanding what others think; they themselves are not able to understand what they think, in addition to having a reduced linguistic capacity and difficulties in understanding certain abstract ideas.

As victims of abuse that they were, they have a deeply rooted belief that they were bad people and that they continue to be, that they deserved these acts of physical and verbal abuse and tend to self-harm. In addition, since in their childhood "love" was manifested in the form of violence and aggressiveness, they assume that it is something normal in all human relations and that it is legitimate to behave like this towards whom one is supposed to love, anticipating that they are going to be attacked sooner or later. early. This makes it difficult for them to establish strong intimate relationships.

When this type of situation is experienced, it is common to see how the child is not respected by her caregivers, coming to indicate that her opinion or wishes should not be listened to. This manifests itself in adult life in such a way that the person is not capable of feeling respect for others, nor understanding their limits, obligations or rights as members of a society, making them prone to commit more crimes.

They tend to develop certain disorders, especially related to depression and anxiety. It is also possible to find people with this type of addiction addicted to drugs, since they sought in them the way to deal with the constant bad memories of their childhood.

How is the treatment?

The therapy aimed at treating those people whose childhood was marked by disorganized attachment focuses, fundamentally, on making them see that they will not necessarily receive harm in intimate relationships. Treatment focuses on making the person more confident in establishing interaction with other people, whether friends, partner and family, both involved and not in the mistreatment.

This increase in trust towards others makes it possible to recover part of the lost time and face the great fear that has been acquired throughout the development. It is the perfect opportunity to develop those activities that you could not practice when you were victim of mistreatment and that the fear that she would be punished for doing it wrong prevented her from taking them to cape.

Disorganized attachment people need a safe zone, and the psychologist's office is one of those places. If the patient assumes this, the therapy will develop properly.

Another aspect to work on in therapy is the negative labels they attribute to themselves., especially those like that they are bad, that they were mistreated because they deserved it, that their parents were educating them that way for doing things wrong...

It is a fairly widespread belief that those who were abused during childhood will end up becoming abusers in adulthood. Although this is not something that always happens, far from it, it is appropriate that therapy promotes greater empathic capacity. This way, in case the patient is about to make the same mistakes that their parents/caregivers did, think about how he felt when he was abused and what consequences it would have on the person he is about to hurt hurt.

Bibliographic references:

• Gayá-Ballester, C., & Molero-Mañes, R., and Gil-Llario, M. (2014). Attachment disorganization and traumatic developmental disorder (TTD). International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology, 3 (1), 375-383.