Disorganized /

Fearful-Avoidant
Attachment
Your Personal Report
The Importance of Human Attachment 1

Thank you for your interest in The Attachment Project

This document outlines your results on the self-report attachment quiz. Your personal report can be found from page 2 onwards.

Why Attachment?
Human attachment plays an essential role in our survival as babies
as well as in our relationships and overall well-being later on.
Since our attachment styles are formed so early, we neither
remember much about this stage of development nor do we have
control over it. Therefore, our attachment traits are typically
subconscious and automatic.
As a consequence, we might find ourselves repeating the same
unhealthy patterns - in our relationships with ourselves and with
others - over and over again.

Love & Intimacy

Relationships are a central part of our lives - after all, we are social
beings with an innate need to belong.
When it comes to love and intimacy, attachment has a huge
influence on the way we select our partners, communicate with
them, and act in relationships with them.
For this reason, cultivating attachment security is the key to
building and maintaining healthy, balanced, and long-lasting
partnerships.

Mental Health & Self-Love

Attachment doesn’t only affect the way we perceive others and our
relationships with them; it also affects how we see and feel about
ourselves.
Possessing attachment security helps us to feel calm, safe, and able
to express our true selves.
It enables us to form a clear idea of what we want in relationships
and communicate our needs openly. This not only has a profound
impact on our happiness and fulfillment, but also on our sense of
identity, self-esteem, autonomy, and purpose in life.

Our Mission
Healing an insecure attachment may take dedication, patience, and
persistence - although this might be challenging, it is entirely
achievable.
Cultivating a secure attachment requires knowledge, practice, and
the ability to reflect on yourself (including your experiences, your
relationships, your skills and weaknesses, and your beliefs, amongst
other factors).
Our mission is to provide you with the necessary insight, skills, and
inspiration so that you can develop a sense of security and feel safe -
both in relationships and on your own.

The Importance of Human Attachment

Understanding Your Scores 2

Tips for Understanding and Interpreting

Your Different Attachment Scores
Our attachment quiz includes a scientifically developed and validated questionnaire, called ECR-RS
(Experiences in Close Relationships - Relationship Structures).* As you might have noticed, you
answered a set of questions for different relationships - with each of your caregivers, with your partner,
and with other people in general. Based on your answers, your scores (anxiety and avoidance scores) for
each relationship were calculated.
On the graphic, you’ll find the estimations of your attachment to each of your caregivers as well as to your
partner. Each circle on the graphic has the same color as the one in the results description for the specific
relationship (e.g. Below the graphic, the word "partner" is blue, so the circle representing the attachment for
this relationship is also blue.).

It’s important to keep in mind that your GENERAL attachment score (how you relate to
others in general) is not depicted in the graphic.

We do, however, base your report on your general attachment style, and not on your
attachment towards a particular significant other.

In some cases, you might notice that your attachment scores for all
relationships (caregivers and partner) do not match your profile - your
general attachment. This, however, is nothing to be concerned about. It
might be that you exhibit a certain pattern of attachment towards people
you meet; and yet, in close intimate relationships, you have a different
approach. O r it could be that you have a specific attachment pattern
towards your caregivers, but not towards other people in your life.

The important thing to remember is that there is no right or wrong

when it comes to how you experience your relationships. And there’s
nothing wrong with having different emotional experiences with
different people in your life.

Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

Profile: Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant 3

Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant is one of the three insecure attachment styles

Please be mindful of the fact that the traits of the disorganized attachment style are considered to be a mix between the anxious and
avoidant attachment style traits. This is because the individual’s situations, mood, and circumstances often dictate which dimension of
attachment they fall on at a certain time. Due to a disorganized attacher’s desire for intimacy and love, and intense fear of rejection, they
often display an "I hate you - no - I love you" pattern of behaviors in relationships. In these situations, the traits of the anxious and avoidant
attachment styles are fighting against each other for manifestation.

Characteristics of Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant

Attachment Style are:
You may vacillate between the traits of the anxious and avoidant
attachment styles. Thus, depending on your situation, you act clingy at
times towards a partner, but on other occasions, dismissive and aloof.
Also, in some cases, you may end up feeling dissociated within your
relationships.

You might exhibit an unpredictable pattern of behaviors.

You may have a poor sense of self agency. This can result in a difficulty
making decisions/feeling helpless/not establishing goals in life.

Within intimate relationships, your desire for love and intense fear of
rejection can cause you to act chaotically - on the one hand you search Score Mother/CG1: Anxiety: 3.67 | Avoidance:
for affection and approval, yet on the other you may become jealous and 6.83
suspicious of your partner's intentions. Score Father/CG2: Anxiety: 4.67 | Avoidance: 7
Score Partner: Anxiety: 1 | Avoidance: 1.33
You desire relationships and love, but believe that you are not worthy of Score General: Anxiety: 6.33 | Avoidance: 5.17
it. Therefore you have difficulty opening up to, trusting, and bonding with
others. Deep down, you believe that a partner will reject and abandon you.

How does your attachment style develop?

The disorganized attachment style is typically formed during the
formative period in a child's life - the first eighteen months, as a
response to the child’s relationship with their primary caregiver(s). It is
thought that this attachment style forms from the child perceiving
their source of safety (their primary caregiver) as scary or fearful.
The genesis of this perception of fear is often rooted in chaotic,
frightened, or frightening behavior from a caregiver. At times they may
be frightened of the child and their ability to parent effectively, but they
may also act frighteningly towards the child. Sometimes, this
frightening behavior might be aggressive or threatening towards the
child or other people. In more extreme circumstances, the caregivers
might be abusive.
This pattern creates an internal conflict for the child; their source of
safety is also their source of fear. Who do they turn to when their world
becomes frightening or threatening?
Another possible contributing factor to the development of
disorganized attachment is when the caregivers are passing down their
own sense of loss and trauma down their child through their actions.
Parenting styles are learned, thus, caregivers often respond to their
child’s needs in the same way that their own needs were met. As a
result, disorganized caregivers may feel disconnected from their child.
In a response to this sense of disconnection, the child attempts to forge
a strategy that will ensure that their caregiver stays emotionally tuned-
in to them.
Early Childhood Attachment 4

Why is secure attachment

so important?

Let’s have a look at the five primary conditions for secure attachment and the corresponding
benefits for self-development. Your responses from the self report on the five conditions of
secure attachment will give you an indication of your early childhood experience from your
earliest childhood memories.

Your Results

Mom or Caregiver #1 Father or Caregiver #1

Protection: 1 Expressed Delight: 1 Protection: 2 Expressed Delight: 3

Attunement: 1 Encouragement: 2 Attunement: 1 Encouragement: 1

Soothing & Average: 1.20 Soothing & Average: 1.80

Reassurance: 1 Reassurance: 2

Result Result

Very Insecure Very Insecure

Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

The Five Conditions 5

1. Felt Safety
As a parent, first and foremost, you want your child to feel protected. If your child feels protected, it feels safe. For
the infant and toddler, safety means closeness to the mother, as she is the source of food, warmth, and protection.
Danger means separation from her, beyond the comfort zone.
The attuned mother is fiercely protective but not overwhelming, intrusive, or ignoring. She gives her child space
and freedom to explore the world, but stays close enough, so that the child has a felt sense of safety.

When the infant strays too far and becomes frightened, they know that they can run to her and envelop her in a
warm, protective embrace, secured against the world. This conveys a message: "You are safe. You are loved. You
are loveable."

2. Feeling Seen and Known / 3. Felt Comfort / Soothing

Attunement and Reassurance
Attuned parents can read their baby’s cues The attuned parent’s arms are open and inviting.
accurately and respond to his or her needs. Attuned When the child is distressed, the caregiver
responses give infants information about the reassures and soothes the child back to a calm
effects of their behavior. Children learn that when emotional state.
they signal a need, they can expect a prompt,
predictable, and accurate response. The result is a Helping the child manage his or her distress and
feeling of control over their lives, starting early on: "I frustrations will help him or her develop an internal
signal that I’m hungry, and I get fed; I signal that I’m model of being soothed and comforted. Over time,
tired, and my mother rocks me to sleep." the child will develop the ability to manage his or
her own distress and self-soothing.

4. Feeling Valued / Expressed 5. Felt Support for Best Self

Delight Children need to feel supported and encouraged to
explore their world joyfully and safely. Parents who
Feeling valued begins in infancy and is the champion this have a deep faith in their child and
foundation of healthy self-esteem development. always provide him or her with a safety net. Deeply
Parents who raise children with a healthy self- involved in their child’s life, parents give the child
esteem repeatedly express their joy about who the space and thrust him or her towards autonomy and
child is rather than what the child does. They focus independence. This sense of security allows the
on Being rather than Doing. Such parents exhibit child to explore, discover, succeed, and fail; and
"expressed delight" to the child and about almost through such exploration, the child develops a good,
everything the child does. They focus not on the autonomous, strong, and unique sense of self.
chores, but on the joys of parenting.

Special thanks to R. Chris Frayley from the University of Illinois for making the use of this test possible and for his contribution to
the attachment field. This test is used with permission from R. Chris Fraley from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

*Source (ECR-RS): Fraley, R. C., Heffernan, M. E., Vicary, A. M., & Brumbaugh, C. C. (2011). The Experiences in Close
Relationships—Relationship Structures questionnaire: A method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships.
Psychological Assessment, 23, 615–625. *
*Source Five Conditions: How to Treat Attachment Disturbances in Adults (Brown & Elliott, 2016)

Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

Profile: Disorganized / Fearful-Avoidant 6

What can you do?

By now, you have found out whether the self-assessment test was
right and whether you have a disorganized attachment style.

One of the key issues in people with disorganized attachment

style is fear of someone they trust hurting them. The easiest
solution? Do not trust anyone. This, however, is not a very
productive or fruitful solution.

Simply avoiding proximity will not heal the trauma or the painful
childhood experiences. In order to learn to build secure
relationships, you need to learn to trust people first.

One way to start healing is by working with a psychotherapist.

therapist is someone you can trust, as he or she will offer a non-
judging, accepting, calm, and predictable space for you to open
up. You might be able to express and make sense of your
experiences, emotions, and needs in a safe environment.

Another option you could consider is trying to heal on your own.

That could be a promising approach, as it does not push your
limits that much. It does not require trusting a stranger right
away.

We can help!
We know that having a disorganized attachment style can be difficult. It can be stressful, confusing, and overwhelming
to experience constant instability in your relationships, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
But there’s no need to feel trapped or hopeless - we’ve got your back!
Below, we’ve outlined a series of steps you can take on your journey towards cultivating attachment security.

The Path to Cultivating Secure Attachment

Get Your Join

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Get your Attachment Style Workbook to gain a deeper understanding of…
-how your attachment style has developed
-how it influences different aspects of your daily life, such as your self-image, romantic relationships,
sexual life, friendships, career, and parenting skills
-how you can use the superpowers associated with your attachment style
-how you can begin cultivating a secure attachment
-and more…

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ATTACHMENT STYLE REPORT
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