Fearful Avoidant Attachment
Good morning and welcome back to the last post in our attachment style series! We’ve explored secure attachment where people are viewed as generally good, caregivers were attentive, and a secure base was established from which to explore the world. Over the past week we looked into two types of insecure attachment, anxious-preoccupied, wherein caregivers were either loving and supportive or dismissive leading the anxiously preoccupied attached adult to be clingy and needy. We also explored in our last post the dismissive avoidant attachment style wherein caregivers were emotionally or physically unavailable and as a result the dismissively avoidant attached person is unable to be emotionally available in relationships and intimate relationships are not a priority.
The final type of insecure attachment is fearful-avoidant attachment. The hallmark of the fearful avoidant attachment style is a fluctuating view of the self and others. Where the other insecure attachments are staunchly marked by either a positive or negative view of the self and others, the fearful-avoidant is much more confused. Another way that this type of insecure attachment differs from the other two types of insecure attachment is that it has less to do with the unintentional ways that caregivers respond (or don’t respond) to their infants, and much more to do with trauma, abuse, and loss. Their childhood experience may have felt like the person that they need to go to for security and comfort is simultaneously a person they fear. This develops into a world view that generalizes the need for being close to others to get needs met coupled with the fear that getting close to others will lead to pain and hurt. It is the combination of the hypervigilant, rejection-seeking of the anxious-preoccupied style and the dismissive-avoidant evasion of intimate relationships.
If this sounds confusing, it’s because it is.
The fearful avoidant adult can often feel like the timing is just off in their relationship. They want the intimacy and are also extremely uncomfortable for these potential friends/partners/lovers to get too close to them. This then leads to an emotional shut down. In many ways this gets the person exactly what they do not want although that may not be clear to the fearfully-avoidant attached adult. They may perceive it as others abandoning them and view it through the lens of victimhood. Those who are in a relationship with a partner who has a fearful-avoidant attachment style may feel as though they’re repeatedly being told to “come here” immediately followed by “go away”.
As with other insecure attachment styles, there is work that can be done to become securely attached. Because this style is so connected with trauma, I would recommend individual therapy to explore the development of this attachment style and the trauma and potential loss that surrounds it. For those who feel as though they match this attachment style and it is creating difficulty in your relationship, I would recommend concurrent couples therapy to address the interactional cycle while you are exploring the development of your personal attachment in individual therapy. Give me a call, I would be happy to set you up with an appointment!
