Fearful-avoidant

What this style is

High attachment anxiety and high avoidance. You want closeness and also fear it, so you can feel pulled in two directions at once.

A pattern that mixes wanting closeness with fearing it, so a person may pull toward and then away from others. In the adult four-category model it is distinct from dismissive-avoidant: fearful-avoidant people tend to want closeness but fear rejection.

Where it comes from Bartholomew and Horowitz call this fearful: a less certain view of yourself and a guarded view of others. In child research it is often linked to care that was frightening or very unpredictable. Both strategies, reaching out and shutting down, end up switched on at the same time.

Words to know

Disorganized attachment

began as a category for infants (Main and Solomon).

Avoidant attachment

What avoidant attachment means in research: discomfort with closeness, self-reliance and pulling away under stress, plus what online use gets wrong.

Hot and cold (push-pull)

Why hot-and-cold behaviour is so hard to leave: push-pull cycles, intermittent reinforcement, on-again/off-again research, and when it's a pattern.

Not sure this is you?

36 statements about how you tend to feel and act in close romantic relationships. Takes about 8 minutes. You get two scores, anxiety and avoidance, and where they place you among the four adult…

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