The different kinds of insecure attachment

Ambivalent - this kind of attachment is found in children whose mother has been either inconsistently or intrusively responsive to her child's needs.

In these cases the child tends to alternate between two opposing behaviours.

On the one hand they may be over clingy and submissive and on the other hand they may reject a carer by turning away, squirming or avoiding eye contact.

Inside the child longs for closeness but fears rejection or being over-responded to.

Avoidant - this is kind of poor attachment is often found in children who have not been abused or neglected but their needs have been met by an insensitive or dismissive response by their parents.

The child tends to show a lack of interest in their mother but remains distantly in contact with her. This behaviour reflects a fear of showing need in case it leads to rejection.

Inside these children deny they have a need for closeness but at the same feel angry that their needs have not been met.

In their dealing with others these children are often on the emotional defensive or use passive aggressive behaviour to manipulate people.

Disorganised - This third type of insecure attachment is the most recently recognised and often has the most extreme consequences.

The children who have a disorganised attachment tend to have been severely abused or neglected.

They tend to feel that their parents have rejected them or fear that they may even be dangerous. Other people are seen as frightening, frightened and dangerous.

The child ends up feeling they are unloved and unloveable, rejected and unworthy, abandoned and bewildered, bad and even evil - yet powerful because they see themselves as being able to cause their parents to behave with great anger, violence or deep withdrawal.

As babies these children cannot form a strategy to handle the anxieties caused by their parents' responses or lack of them and end up feeling vulnerable, helpless and out of control.

It is this fear of being out of control that is a constant theme in attachment disorder.

Much of the challenging behaviour found in these disturbed children reflects their need to feel in control at all times. By being in control they feel more able to prevent abusive or rejecting situations which cause them to be overwhelmed by pain, fear or anger.

The result of maintaining these defense mechanisms leaves these children little time for exploration or learning. They tend to show less novelty-seeking or pretend play, and may also have speech and language problems.

An abusive or depressed parent can withdraw from talking to a child who then has fewer emotion words to help them identify, understand and distinguish their feelings.

The children are likely to display an array of behaviours that, unlike the other two insecure attachment types, seem to have little pattern to them. They can range from total apathy to outright aggression.

Some children even find it difficult to differentiate feelings associated with their basic senses including touch, smell, taste, sound and sight. Bodily signals, such as pain or hunger or needing to urinate, are easily misread and lead to inappropriate behaviours such as putting a winter coat on for a hot summers day or wanting to eat when they are already full.

So how can you identify if a child has an attachment disorder?

For a list of symptoms click here

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