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Post by iz42 on Nov 4, 2019 18:07:40 GMT
Has anyone else encountered this concept? From a therapist I follow online: “the fearful avoidant individual tends to stay pretty predictably in the avoiding-due-to-high-fear-realm. People with disorganized attachment on the other hand (rarer we tend to think, fwiw), much like the trauma that causes it, have a more fragmented attachment style and can move all over the spectrum depending on the individual relationship or the day or what ruptures/repairs have happened or are happening.”
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Post by serenity on Nov 4, 2019 21:54:32 GMT
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Post by iz42 on Nov 4, 2019 22:15:14 GMT
Hmm yeah that's what I've seen too. This therapist is basically saying that there are 5 types: FA, DA, AP, Secure, and disorganized.
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Post by serenity on Nov 4, 2019 23:37:28 GMT
I suppose therapists can make mistakes with terms, though I think I get what they were saying. I noticed in that article I linked, the writer says something similar, about the differences between FA and co-morbid dismissive avoidant with anxious traits:
``It is important to note that people with anxious attachment style and people with dismissive-avoidant attachment style can show traits of the opposite insecure attachment style that may cause them to believe they are fearful-avoidant. For example, Ben's mother was very smothering in childhood but his father would alternate between giving him attention and being completely dismissive during periods of time when he was under high pressure at work. Ben scores highly on the dismissive-avoidance scale as the relationship with his mother was most influential to him. However, he does also have some anxious characteristics that he developed from his father's behavior towards him. He is mostly attracted towards anxious women, therefore, he stays in his dismissive-avoidant attachment style for the majority of the time. Occasionally he meets a women he is attracted to who is more dismissive-avoidant than him, which polarizes him over to his anxious side. He then finds himself using some anxious attachment behaviors to try and get her attention. It does not mean that he has the fearful-avoidant attachment style. Fear was not an emotion that he experienced during childhood much, the negative emotions he mostly felt where feeling suffocated, annoyed or rejected. People with fearful-avoidant attachment display much more unpredictable behavior.''
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Post by happyidiot on Nov 5, 2019 1:24:20 GMT
I know a therapist who has the same concept, but I don't think she calls it "disorganized." But she thinks of FA as a clear type with fairly predictable behavior, and then says there are other people who are more like a mix of all the types, bouncing back and forth between anxious and avoidant, no dominant type. I would think people with BPD often tend to demonstrate a really mixed attachment type? And sometimes I think mine is pretty mixed. I don't know if I behave in the ways supposedly characteristic of FAs. So I guess it depends if you want to just call anyone who is high in both anxiety and avoidance FA, or if you want to separate it into two categories based on behavior or consistency. I don't know if I'm articulating this well. As I type this I am unsure what I think myself. Sometimes I think nearly everyone displays traits of all the types! My DA sister (we weren't raised together) is more like the person in the quote serenity provided above. We thought she might be FA at first because she had been a bit anxious in one relationship with a more "severe" DA, but realized that she is almost always pretty heavily DA with just a bit of FA traits. That is different than someone who is all over the map. "Disorganized" is not usually considered a synonym for fearful avoidant, usually the term is used to describe children and only roughly corresponds to FA in adults. Although anne12 uses it for adults, maybe she can shed some light on what she interprets it to mean. I don't think the term "fearful avoidant" is fitting for me personally, there is too much emphasis on the word avoidant. I have a strong anxious side. And with a lot of people I've just felt/acted more like a DA, not afraid. Hard to explain briefly. |
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Post by iz42 on Nov 5, 2019 1:36:25 GMT
I know a therapist who has the same concept, but I don't think she calls it "disorganized." But she thinks of FA as a clear type with fairly predictable behavior, and then says there are other people who are more like a mix of all the types, bouncing back and forth between anxious and avoidant, no dominant type. I would think people with BPD often tend to demonstrate a really mixed attachment type? And sometimes I think mine is pretty mixed. I don't know if I behave in the ways supposedly characteristic of FAs. So I guess it depends if you want to just call anyone who is high in both anxiety and avoidance FA, or if you want to separate it into two categories based on behavior or consistency. I don't know if I'm articulating this well. As I type this I am unsure what I think myself. Sometimes I think nearly everyone displays traits of all the types! My DA sister (we weren't raised together) is more like the person in the quote serenity provided above. We thought she might be FA at first because she had been a bit anxious in one relationship with a more "severe" DA, but realized that she is almost always pretty heavily DA with just a bit of FA traits. That is different than someone who is all over the map. "Disorganized" is not usually considered a synonym for fearful avoidant, usually the term is used to describe children and only roughly corresponds to FA in adults. Although anne12 uses it for adults, maybe she can shed some light on what she interprets it to mean. I don't think the term "fearful avoidant" is fitting for me personally, there is too much emphasis on the word avoidant. I have a strong anxious side. And with a lot of people I've just felt/acted more like a DA, not afraid. Hard to explain briefly. You made a lot of good points and I think what you're saying is clear. I guess there are different models of attachment. This particular therapist was saying that FA is characterized by low self-esteem + avoidance and is fairly common, while someone with disorganized attachment might change their style daily or hourly depending on the situation and this tends to be more rare (and is usually a result of extreme abuse). |
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Post by anne12 on Nov 5, 2019 14:32:36 GMT
My teacher and Diane Poole Heller uses desorganised attatchment style. I do not know what to call fearfull avoidant in my own language.
According to Diane you can have one or two situations that can push you into some desorganised behaviour (fight, flight or freeze). And otherwise you can have some avoidant attatchment style, ambivalent attatchment style and or secure attatchment style.
Or you can have more severe desorganised attatchment style.
When you were not able to flee or fight as a child because your attatchmentsystem overruled your naturel urge to flee or fight as a child (speeder- sympathetic state), your parasympathetic state kicks in and puts on the brakes - like driving a car with the gass pedal and the brakes pushed down at the same time.
This urge to fight or flee can then suddenly get activated again in a love relationship because it reminds you of the interaction you had with your parents/other caregive when you were a child (at the instinktive subconscious level) It's panic and survival energy that got trapped in your nerveussystem. You are in your threat responce - even if it doesn't show in your reactions on the outside.
Maybe you do not actually flee or fight but you can sometimes feel the urge inside or you go into freeze (maybe there is not enough energy/capacity in your nerveussystemsystem and then you just feel tired ect. - maybe you disociate) Sometimes you can have a tiny reaction and then your system shuts down again. If an avoidant sometimes have got a tiny reaction, then it is possible that they also got some desorganised attatchmentstyle/trauma.
My teacher said that she had a client who had to go to.the bathroom and throw up when she was together with her secure boyfriend and she didn't understand why this was happening. (You can have similar reactions from other kinds of trauma and also from stress)
You can be more of a fleer, a fighter or a freezer or a mix of all of them. According to Diane you can be desorganised avoidant, desorganised ambivalent ect. You can also react where both the desorganised attatchment style and the avoidant attatchment style are in play at the same time.
I have been teached that there are two types of ambivalent attatchment styles - the more angry one and the other who gets more sad than angry. You can also have a mix.
Two types of avoidant attatchment styles - one that developed from birth or very early on and one where the person had a secure or an ambivalent attatchment style before and then something happend and the person have tried to reach out and reach out many times and then they have finally given up (according to some Italian experts)
You could know more about this than I do..
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Post by alexandra on Nov 5, 2019 18:55:23 GMT
anne12 "I have been teached that there are two types of ambivalent attatchment styles - the more angry one and the other who gets more sad than angry." This makes sense to me and I hadn't thought about it before. When I was AP, the angry/abusive extreme didn't resonate with me at all, even though I'm aware it can happen (protest behaviors that involve lashing out, need for control that spurs jealousy and eventually abuse). But I would often get very sad due to my romantic relationship conflicts. We have AP talk on this board that it's very difficult for them to feel anger or feel okay with being angry as well. So, I'd buy into there being these two types of ambivalent styles.
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