Ep 134: Disorganized Attachment with Julie Menanno
Art work by the talented @muhammedsalah_
Are outbursts, a chronic lack of trust, and an unpredictable fluctuation between avoidant and anxious behavior a sign of disorganized attachment? What is disorganized attachment? How does it affect relationships? Why don’t we hear more about this attachment style?Can we move from disorganized attachment to secure attachment?
In this episode, Effy and Jacqueline sit down with Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist - and self proclaimed attachment nerd - Julie Menanno, to explore the least mentioned and most elusive attachment style: disorganized AKA fearful avoidant. Drawing from personal experience, they unpack developmental traumas that result in disorganized attachment and discuss strategies for healing and moving towards a more secure connection.
More about Julie
Julie Menanno MA is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and Relationship Coach. She currently has a clinical therapy practice treating couples, as well as a relationship coaching practice with a staff of coaches who serve clients all over the globe. Julie is trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples and specializes in working with attachment issues within relationships.
While Julie’s first passion is treating couples, she also provides invaluable relationship insights and advice to nearly 1 million followers on Instagram. She is currently working with Simon and Schuster on a book, Secure Love. In addition to her work as an author and social media creator, Julie hosts a bi-weekly Patreon discussion group on a variety of relationship and self-help topics.
IG: @thesecurerelationship
thesecurerelationship.com
Resources:
traumahealing.org
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT)
“The book you wish your parent had read” - Philippa Perry
“I Hate You, Don't Leave Me” - Hal Straus and Jerold Jay Kreisman
Related episodes:
24 - Attachment Patterning and Sexual Expression with Angie Gunn
45 - Anxiety, Attachment Systems, and Finding Joy
73 - Codependency, Non-monogamy, the Octopus and the Turtle
80 - Attachment Styles, Trauma and Non-Monogamy with Jessica Fern
92 - Trauma, Sense of Safety and the Soma with Rida Kıraşı
129 - Attraction vs. Activation: Trauma, Attachment, and Love at First Sight
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla
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TRANSCRIPT:
Effy
Welcome to the Curious Fox podcast for those challenging the status quo in love, sex, and relationships. My name is Effy Blue.
Jacqueline
And I'm Jacqueline Misla. And today, we're talking about disorganized attachment, or attachment system is our primal survival strategy that ensures that we're taken care of as helpless infants. As babies were born 100% dependent with zero boundaries and a full awareness of this. So in an effort to survive, we've evolved to attach to our caregivers, who then become the main source of our sense of safety and our sense of self. And ultimately, the role model for love, connection, comfort and relational harmony. We have done a million episodes on Attachment, all of which we will list in the show notes. And we've explored the topic from various angles from theory to practice, from macro to micro, from the intellectual to the somatic. However, one area of attachment theory that neither we nor anyone else really has dug into, is disorganized attachment style.
Effy
Before we dig deeper, a quick interlude.
Jacqueline
We want to pause to remind you about three important things. Curious Fox is more than just a podcast. For over six years, we've been producing workshops, writing blog posts, creating worksheets and cultivating conversations. Our goal is to promote curiosity, and to change the noise using all the platforms that we have available to us to share stories, research and insights that provide an alternative to the mainstream view on love, sex and relationships. We want people to feel seen and consider new possibilities every time they listen, read or interact with curious Fox content. So here are three simple ways to support us that won't cost you a penny. First, please like follow subscribe, or simply click on the plus button somewhere on your podcast app, and tell the podcast algorithms that this content matters. Number two, go to our website. We are curious foxes.com And subscribe to the curious Fox newsletter so that you can receive curated recommendations on topics such as jealousy, non monogamy, pleasure dating, and so much more. And three, subscribe to our YouTube channel where you not only you can listen to the show, but you can find playlists on popular topics and you the gorgeous art that's been selected for each and every episode. These three small things will amount to one big fu to the status quo.
Effy
When we're talking about attachment styles, we often hear them grouped into two major categories secure and insecure. Then, we talk about the two different types of insecure attachment, anxious and avoidant. Another less common way of looking at attachment styles is through the lens of organized and disorganized, organized being secure, anxious and avoidant, and disorganized being well this organized, which is also called fearful, avoidant, or disorganized oscillating. One of the main reasons why disorganized attachment doesn't get the column inches that organized styled good, is because it's difficult to talk about. It's disorganized nature makes it super complicated and hard to pin down. Those with disorganized attachment are often in chronic distress that can cross over to personality disorders, addictions, and they often exhibit other maladaptive coping strategies that mask the relational aspect of their distress. Also, the research shows the common cause of the disorganized attachment style is developmental trauma. And the mental health sector is only in the recent years, becoming trauma informed, looking at Trauma not as an isolated experience, but as a major factor in our subsequent experiences of life or all. This trauma informed lens is also making us look at other disorders such as ADHD, bipolar, two, anxiety and depression differently.
Jacqueline
To help us understand disorganized attachment, its roots and to impact on relationships, we reached out to
Julie Menanno
Hi everybody, my name is Julie Manado. And I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, as well as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. I practice emotion focused therapy for couples, which is an attachment focused type of modality for couples work. I'm also on Instagram, you can find me at the secure relationship where I offer couples all sorts of practical and philosophical advice through through the lens of attachment theory.
Effy
Attachment happens between two people we can attach to multiple people, for example, are mom and dad. But each of these connections will have their own quality. On this note, you can have multiple partners. But each of those relationships will also have their own quality. For that reason, in this conversation, Judy discusses this organized attachment between two people. And while she refers them as a couple, this information can be applied to any two people within a significant relationship. Even if those people are non monogamous and partnered with others, if you happen to meet a non monogamous relationship with multiple partners, not that you have more data points, and you might observe that your attachment style might show up differently in different relationships.
Jacqueline
So we started by asking, How does attachment show up in relationships?
Julie Menanno
Basically, when it comes to relationships, I think attachment theory is the closest thing science has ever come to understanding relationships on a fundamental level. So when I look at attachment, we're looking at three areas of the relationship. How do couples Connect? How do they reach and give comfort, emotional comfort in times of distress? And how do they manage conflict? The connection part is, are they able to be vulnerable? Are they able to talk about their feelings and topic talk about their deeper experiences other than just, you know, their thoughts? And usually, a lot of couples only get to vulnerability when they're mad at each other? And then all they're seeing is the anger? How do they comfort each other in times of distress? Do they try to move each other away from their feelings? Or do they dive into the feelings and instead, try to provide you know, know how to provide the right level of emotional support? And how do they do conflict? Are they falling into a negative cycle, where the way that they're speaking about the topic is creating a lot of emotional and safety, attachment wounds in the process of speaking, and then the conversation just becomes more and more escalated? Or are they able to use vulnerability and healthy communication, to really hear each other and see the other person's perspective while holding their own in order to, you know, navigate through the conflict of whatever it is they're talking about. And so when you have a secure relationship, you're going to see two partners who can connect on multiple levels, they not only enjoy time together and have basic compatibility of values, and all these surface level things that we want to see couples having. But they're also able to share their their feelings, their deeper fears, their deeper vulnerabilities, they're able to speak with a level of richness about their past experiences, their whole right there not just showing up with different parts of themselves in different situations.
Effy
So secure or insecure attachment styles can be observed in the way that two people connect, comfort each other and navigate conflict. Those who are securely attached demonstrate a willingness to connect, to be vulnerable, to talk about feelings to communicate openly and so on.
Jacqueline
Yeah. So what about those who have insecure attachment specifically anxious or avoidant?
Julie Menanno
Someone with an anxious attachment, the way that they're used to getting their needs met is by amplifying they're showing their distress, they're protesting, they're crying for attention. And this is because of the way that they were raised in an environment where the attention and emotional comfort was unpredictably given. So they had to learn to get bigger to be seen and heard. And that is how they navigate their relationship with their partner. And it's based on the partner's actual availability to them in real life in the present. And it's informed by their past. And the way that the past comes in to inform is sometimes they're seeing the world through the lens of my partner is really not going to be there for me. And so some of that gets projected onto the partner. And some of it is also from the partners legitimate legitimate difficulties showing up. So their strategy for getting their needs met is is get big and what we call hyper activate. And then for the avoidant attachment, their strategy for getting their needs met is to have no needs. So their strategy is well if I can just stuff my needs out of awareness. I don't have to feel the pain of being rejected, I don't have to feel like I'm going to be seen as weak for being vulnerable. And this comes from a childhood where don't bother showing up emotionally or vulnerably. Because nobody's really going to be there. It's very consistent. It's a consistent rejection as opposed to an unpredictable one, like we're gonna see with anxious attachment. And then we fall we go into disorganized, which I know is what you would like to focus on today. My favorite line to describe disorganized attachment is fright without solution. So disorganized folks there. They have the same needs, but they don't really have any hope that their needs will get met. Whereas an anxious partner, they have some hope, right? If I get big enough, I will be somehow some way it's going to come along to me. The response is going to come along. The avoidant is well, my hope it's a subconscious hoped. But my hope is, if I just don't feel I don't have to feel the pain of rejection. The disorganized person doesn't have any hope they feel the distress. They know they're in distress, but they don't really believe anybody could possibly be there for them to comfort them. And that was their legitimate experience in life
Jacqueline
growing up. Often in conversations about attachment, we're thinking about the anxious ambivalent octopus grabbing out for attention and connection, or the avoidant turtle hiding within themselves protecting themselves from the pain and that they fear is going to come from connection. Can you speak to why a person might end up with disorganized attachment style as a strategy for
Julie Menanno
connection? So the distinction is an important distinction that people don't always know about in attachment theory is between the organized attachment styles, and the disorganized attachment style. It's called disorganized, because secure, anxious and avoidant are actually organized. There are there are set strategies there. There's a method to the madness, right? When it comes to disorganized, there's really no method there, because they don't have a strategy that that they perceive as working. Again, they can't physically cut off their emotions, because well, there is there is a caveat to that, that we'll get in later, but their inner experience is so dysregulated, that they don't have a subconscious strategy. So without that subconscious strategy, they just sort of either fall apart, or they oscillate between different strategies at any given moment, even in the same moment, they might, you know, one second, do one strategy, the next second do another strategy. Let me go back, though, because your your question was, how does this get created during childhood? Well, the answer is an environment where, one, there's a lot of distress in the environment, right? There's chaos in the environment, it could be an abusive environment, it could be just a highly socio economically stressed environment. Regardless, there's a high high amount of stress, it could be domestic violence, it could be, you know, the child witnessing a lot of marital conflict. And then we have this added layer of either zero comfort available, or actual harm coming to them if they reach for comfort. So a person growing up in an avoidant environment, they might have a very impoverished emotional environment, but their environment can be very structured, their physical needs can be taken care of their educational needs can be taken care of. So they're not walking around in just a lot of environmental stress all the time. And somehow, they're able to get some sort of comfort, maybe the comfort is in routine, maybe the comfort is in being able to achieve in school and being rewarded for that an anxious person, they're able to access comfort, some of the time. It's unpredictable, but some of the time they just in their lives are just generally a little more stable. You take a disorganized environment, and it's just a high high, high amount of stress and a low low low amount of comfort and in add in a layer for most of the time of danger and abuse and some trauma. So that
Jacqueline
makes sense. Because to your point, then there has to be different reactions, different strategies, because the environment around us continues to change. Yes. So that makes sense in terms of the origins and where that came from, and how they're reacting to it. Once they grow up, and they form relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, how does that show up?
Julie Menanno
A pervasive lack of trust. There's just a deep, deep lack of trust there. And so without that trust, it's hard even when someone is being good to them. It's almost impossible for them to believe okay, this person actually is here for me and will show up for me in the future. And then on top of that, they tend to gravitate towards people who actually won't show up for them or can't show the better word is can't show up for them because they don't know what that looks like or feels like. So a they kind of recreate their past a lot of times in the relationships that they find themselves in you And even if that doesn't happen, their trust is they just have a pervasive lack of trust. And that trust keeps them in a state of fear. You know how how aware they are of that fear at any given moment can vary, but subconsciously, their relationships are threatening and scary.
Jacqueline
In my personal experience, I think and who've I partnered with, I've noticed the insecure in terms of the anxious style and the avoidant style kind of coming together the octopus and ESA and the girls marrying to something like that exists with with folks who have disorganized attachment, are there types of personalities or attachment styles that they're drawn to?
Julie Menanno
Yes, from what I have seen, you know, I don't know the research on this, but I do know what my clinical experiences and that to me a lot of times is more important than anything else, because it's just a lie right in front of me. Consistently, I see a disorganized attached with an avoidant partner, because of the fact that what I see and I think that there is research confirming this most disorganized attachment is going to be in that oscillating category. And that oscillating category is, is on the far end of the anxious spectrum. For most people who have disorganized attachment, I'm using some research by a researcher named Bini in 2018. And he's done a lot of research with disorganized attachment. But his model is that there's one category of disorganization, that's at the end of the anxious spectrum, it's an extreme version of it the anxious attachment, and it involves some a lot more intense symptoms, more intense distress, more dramatic, exaggerated behaviors, and more variation of behaviors. And then on the other spectrum of the avoidance spectrum, we have someone who has the same level of inner chaos as anybody else with a disorganized attachment. But their way of managing that chaos is to completely cut it off, I mean to a to a very strong degree where this person might be, you know, work jobs that are far, far below their qualifications, just simply to avoid any level of stress have completely avoid relationships in order to avoid relationship stress. So I don't see that in my practice, those are not the people who are usually in relationships, and they're not the people who are showing up to therapy if they are, and I think they're also the minority. So I'm going to focus on this other category, which is what what some people would call fearful avoidant, or what BD calls the disorganized oscillating, because of the fact that they're on this end of the anxious spectrum. They just wouldn't pair up with someone who's also on the anxious spectrum, it would never work, there's too much, there would be too much conflict and chaos. So someone is either going to fall into more of the avoidant role or they're going to start off with, you know, that disorganized avoidant dynamic. And the reason they're, there are a few different reasons for that. One is, is emotional balance those who are disorganized, they're looking for stability, right? Where are they going to find emotional stability, if they don't have it inside of themselves, they're going to find it in someone that they perceive as having emotional stability, which is really a second best version of emotional stability, it's just really more emotional cut off. And so that person has their function and the relationship is going to be keep things calm, you know, let's not have everything escalate out of control, try to convince you to be more rational, you know, kind of down, do whatever I can to kind of quell or minimize that highly emotional part of you, which might work for a while, but eventually that that system will fall apart.
Effy
Can you speak to a little about what that looks like day to day. So I understand that you're describing the dynamics of power dynamics. I'm interested in like an example so that people can really sort of bring it home like what if people would organize attachment? What would be their common triggers? What are the sort of favorite strategies? And how would that then be counted with somebody who's avoidant? Okay, so let's, let's
Julie Menanno
say, you know, those with a disorganized attachment are likely to have a lot of distress in their life period, right? A lot of sometimes conflict with others outside of their life. So let's say that someone with a disorganized attachment has a problem at work, someone upsets them at work. Again, their lack of trust for others causes them to a lot of times, assume that others are kind of out out to get them or are deliberately hurting them, when really might that might not actually be the case. And so they get really distressed and upset and they call their avoidant partner, and they're crying and they're, you know, they're just really upset and the avoidant partner is saying, Okay, you just need to calm down. You just need to calm down or any number of strategies that someone with an avoidant attachment might use to get someone else to quote unquote, calm down. It's not a comfort. It's a Have you need to look at this differently or, or come on don't Don't be so hysterical, or maybe trying to any version of talking them out of their feelings, which is going to be experienced by the person with a disorganized attachment as invalidating, they're going to hear invalidation. And it's probably really, truly invalidating if someone's trying to move you away from your experience. And so then that's going to escalate them even more, right. And so now they're escalated not only because of the situation at work, but because they've reached out for comfort that they don't know how to reach for in a healthy way. And they haven't been able to receive the comfort because they're not with someone who can give them the comfort. And even if that person could give them the comfort, they probably wouldn't trust them enough to be able to take it in. So now they're having this relationship distress on top of the work distress. And this person might be the kind that you know, ghost takes it to another level, and has, you know, alcohol or something else to kind of numb that now to layers of extreme distress. And then, you know, let's say they come home, and they're, they've been drinking, and then that causes more trouble with the avoidant partner, or let's say they just come home, and they're very dysregulated, because of what happened, they can't get their nervous system to regulate, understandably because of the level of distress. And then that goes on to bleed over into the family or to the relationship with the partner, and it creates another fight. Or they might be the type that they've had trauma to the degree that they've had to dissociate to get through their, their difficult feelings, and they come home and they're just flat, and they can't, they're not showing, they're not able to show up for the kids. They're so over the top that they've just had to kind of disconnect completely. It's layers of escalation and layers of distress. And I just want to really put this out there, this is not bad people, this is high, high levels of distress and walking around the world with with very, very little to no comfort for that distress.
Effy
Mm hmm. Thank you for putting the theory into a scenario and bringing it home. When I hear you describe this organized attachment style, I can't help but notice its similarities between borderline personality disorder. Is there a connection? If so, how are disorganized attachment style and BPD? Connected? Oh, yes,
Julie Menanno
there's a lot of overlap. In fact, a lot of beanies research that I just mentioned is on the association between disorganized attachment personality disorders. What I like to say is that if you have borderline personality disorder, by definition, the DSM definition, you have a disorganized attachment. But if you have a disorganized attachment, that does not mean you qualify for a DSM diagnosis of borderline. So with that said, you're going to see the same chaotic behaviors you're going to see, you know, people who are borderline are often handling their distress with suicide attempts or suicidal gestures, self harm, highly destructive behaviors, extreme emotional dysregulation, and it's just not possible that someone could be doing those things and not have a disorganized attachment.
Jacqueline
I imagined for folks that what complicates it is they are experiencing this inner turmoil as you described, they're not they're not able to figure out how do they connect with someone else and communicate that there's just so much happening inside? Yes, I imagined then there's an s layer of frustration, self loathing, just really looking at yourself and saying, Well, what is wrong with me that I'm feeling all these things? And everyone else seems to have it? Particularly if they're partnered with someone who is avoidant? Then it looks on the outside like they have it all together? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Julie Menanno
There's just this constant sense of blame outside of me, self hatred, blame outside of me, self hatred, there's no consistency, there's no ability to integrate, okay, this person has this problem. And this is real, and them and this is coming from them. And then this is coming from me. And here's what my part here is and integrating that into kind of a whole a whole picture. Instead, it's just this constant back and forth. You're the problem. You're the problem. Oh, I hate myself. I hate myself. Sometimes it all exists at one time. It's a lot of inner conflict, a lot of inner turmoil. What's wrong with me? Why is this person not responding to me? They're projecting all of their past trauma figures in their life onto other people. This is why it's called disorganized and this is why a lot of people don't like to talk about it because it's so disorganized. It's hard to even put words to it. It's hard to understand it and so a lot of people just kind of stay away from it because it's so hard to talk about it. Because it's just so contrary. It's just a such a contradictory state of being.
Jacqueline
Yeah.
Effy
So given it's a hard condition to diagnose and talk about with little information out there. What up Since other for those with disorganized attachment styles,
Julie Menanno
I think a lot of people here it just be ignored. Like they're they have a sense that they have something that's happening on a more distressing and more exaggerated level than the anxious and avoidant, but they're not getting a ton of information about that. So you know, then that kind of leaves them alone without help. And then we have this added piece where they go to therapy. And if this therapist is not highly, highly trained to work with a person who has all this relationship difficulties, those relationship difficulties are going to show up in the therapeutic relationship, and then that's going to fall apart. And then they're going to have another experience under their belt of a failed, failed relationship. So the first thing I would like to say is, it's just really important to get to get someone who's very well versed in this type of work. And that's a tall order, because there aren't a ton of people. I mean, I think the field is becoming more trauma informed, and more attachment formed. And so the health quality of health is getting better for these folks. But what I like to say is the absolute first step for someone with a disorganized attachment, because those with a disorganized attachment are so uncomfortable in their bodies, their body is an actual dangerous place. stimulus is coming at them left and right, that's triggering, they've already got triggering mental representations inside of themselves, the level of stress that they themselves create in their lives, because of their difficulty navigating the world creates all sorts of pain, physical pain inside of their body, anxious anxiety, fear, feelings of threat. And just to put this out there, there are also people who have disorganized attachment to a very high functioning and parts of their lives. Not they're not their primary relationships, but work, they might have been very successful at what they do for work. So I don't want to put them into this category of just people who are extremely dysfunctional in all areas of life. That's not the case. Some of them are high functioning, it's going to show up in their relationships though. No question. It's not showing up in their relationships. There's no door disorganized attachment. So the first thing that I always recommend is Somatic Experiencing therapy. I cannot stress that more. It is a therapy that helps you learn to cope with your body through your body. Instead of learning to cope with your body through your mind, there is coping with your body through your mind has very limited effectiveness. Insight is great talking about things is great with a safe person. I don't want to downplay that at all. But if someone has a disorganized attachment, that strategy will hit a wall, they need to learn to become comfortable within their own skin. From that platform of becoming comfortable and safe inside of themselves. They can start showing up in new ways in their relationships, you cannot show up a new rate ways in your relationships if you're getting so dysregulated you're fighting against something much bigger than yourself. So my number one piece of advice if you have a disorganized attachment is to get a lot of somatic work, somatic experiencing, you can find from a therapist on trauma healing.org. These people are highly trained. If they're licensed therapists, they not only have a master's degree, but they also have a two year intensive program in somatic therapy work.
Jacqueline
I love what you said there that we need to learn how to cope with our body through our body, instead of learning to cope with our body through our mind.
Julie Menanno
Paradoxically, anxious partners are also using their mind to treat their body. The difference between the two is that the anxious partner is aware of their body, they're aware of the pain in their body, whereas an avoidant partner is disconnected from it. But neither of them are really going down into their body with vulnerability. The anxious partner is getting overwhelmed with emotion, while the avoidant partner is cutting off the emotion. But neither of them are really addressing the emotion bodily.
Jacqueline
In a situation where, as you noted that it really is important for someone to be able to get some counsel so they can work through these things. What are the next steps that happen for the individual? What is the role of the partner in that situation? How in that moment, when you're in the midst of a spiral, someone with disorganized attachment? And your instinct is to say, just calm down? Just what should one be doing? instead? If a partner is listening, and you're like, Oh, you're talking about my significant other? What should they be doing in those moments?
Julie Menanno
Well, there are a lot of different ways there are a lot of things that the partner can do to help the situation. Usually what the partner has been doing is not working. There's a book out and it's written and again, I'm hoping that the field can kind of evolve from this, but it's written for partners of someone with borderline personality disorder, that term has become pathologized but it's also a real You know, real thing. But there's a book called I Hate You don't leave me. And it's very good. It's very, it takes a very compassionate stance against people who I mean toward people who are struggling with these kinds of behaviors and ways of showing up in the relationship. And it, it teaches the partners how to set boundaries, how to show up in emotionally comforting ways, how to initiate conversations, I have found this book to be incredibly useful for the people that I've the couples that I've worked with. That's great. Yeah, and the boundary setting is a big piece of it. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, these are people who grew up with no boundaries, you know, they had no boundaries, they weren't allowed to set boundaries, nobody was, you know, if the, the boundaries that were set with them are punitive, so they already associate boundaries with, you know, punishment and harm and shame. And so it's kind of restructuring boundaries to be coming from a loving place. And I'm talking about the highest levels of distress here. But often, let's say, for example, we have one partner who has gotten into the habit of when there's a fight, going to a place of I'm going to kill myself, I'm going to kill myself, right? What happens with that is that partner of this person, understandably, gets really scared, and does everything in their power to keep that person from not hurting themselves. And so they might just say acquiesce, and say, okay, okay, I'll do whatever you want, or, you know, start accommodating that threat. And it could be a real threat. I mean, I'm not saying it's real or not real, that the answer in that situation, is to get them help immediately call 911. If the person is genuinely, you know, wanting to harm themselves, that's going to keep them safe, more than anything else anybody else can do. And if they're not, then they have learned, okay, people take this seriously. Right? People take this seriously, if I start saying this, I'm going to be going to the hospital. And that is that's an example of a boundary around that kind of behavior.
Effy
So Julie, we've been talking about this organized attachment in the context of romantic relationships. I'm curious to if you can speak to it in the context of familial connection. So what what happens if you have a disorganized the attached parent? What is the experience of that child? And what what can we expect from the adult version of that child?
Julie Menanno
Well, you know, there's only so far you can connect, a child can connect with someone who has a parent with disorganized attachment, because part of the disorganized attachment is extreme difficulty connecting, that person might notice that they're going into a caretaking role with the disorganized parent. It's not super clean cut, because it can show up in a lot of different ways. But I guess the number one way is that parent is not going to be able to be there is a strong, stronger, wiser other to the child or adult child, it's going to be either, you know, a cut off relationship where I can't even have a relationship with this parent, because it's so much chaos. It's so much retraumatization I am associate this person with you know, just too much trauma to even feel okay around them. Again, it could it could switch over into the the child as the caretaker of the adult, a lot of times, disorganized attachment can be created that way. Because the child is in the position of being the Comforter to the parent, that where does that leave the child without comfort for themselves? I guess if I were just to condense it all it's going to be that child is going to feel extremely uncomfortable in the presence of that person.
Effy
Can a healthy relationship be maintained? If that's the case,
Julie Menanno
one is there needs to be healing in that healing means that the disorganized parent needs to recognize their part in contributing to wounds and the child, even adult child, right, I need you they need to say, Okay, I'm really getting how what happened to me impacted you, you know, it doesn't mean that they're, they're admitting their bad, you know, their stuff obviously came from somewhere, right. And then the other thing is that we have to have that person being able to have healthy relationship skills. If there's going to be a relationship, you can't be in a reciprocal relationship with someone who doesn't know how to be in a relationship.
Jacqueline
In your work with couples. Do you do work individually with each each member of the couple? Or is it always together? I'm interested in specifically, what is your advice about that combination of work of work on your own? And what does that look like and work with your partner? And what does that look like?
Julie Menanno
Well, the reason that I went into couples therapy is because what I found is that it was more effective to treat someone in the context of a couple. It's more effective to even do individual work. And that's my experience. I don't that doesn't mean it's the experience of every clinician. Session. But I think there are a few reasons for that. One is I'm getting to see the whole person, I'm getting to see who they actually are relationally by have by seeing them in the relationship. Whereas when I'm seeing someone separated from the relationship, I'm not, I'm not actually seeing how they show up I, they might, you know, be telling me how they show up and think that that's that nobody's lying, right. But it's just, they don't even necessarily know who they are in their relationship from the outside. So I feel like I'm working with with more of the whole person. And then another big piece for me is that you have to have an emotionally supportive bond between therapist and client in order for to do the work of the therapy. And what I was finding is that I was bonding with my clients and helping them go through this work. But they, they weren't developing that bond outside of the therapy, necessarily, if their partner was also struggling with their own stuff. So when I work with couples, I get to create that bond between them, which is beautiful, I love that it's the greatest experience ever. But I do believe that the work that I do, and the work that the type of work I do Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, when done well, is every bit as much individual work as it is relationship work. And I, I spend my session working with one partner at a time. So I'm taking an event a moment in their relationship where there was a trigger, right, I just look at one trigger, because that one trigger is going to represent globally, the whole relationship. And I work with it. And I've and I go with one partner, and I really want to understand everything about what happened for that person. In that trigger. I want to enter in your as the therapy goes on. And you know, I don't I don't dive in on the first session with all of it. But as the therapy goes on, I'm wanting to know, how is this related to attachment issues in the past? What was the somatic experience? What's the meanings that you're making of it? How are all these things related to the past? How are they related to the current current messages that you've received in this relationship? What is your view of yourself here that's kind of tainting everything? What is your view of others that's kind of tainting everything? And what do you do to manage all of this? How are you reaching for comfort? How are you reaching for connection? How are you showing up with concerns about where the dishes go? How are you showing up with your need for sex? Or, you know, your difficulties with sex? How are you showing up with all the logistical parts of the relationship? And how is it all tied together with this whole attachment complex going on in your body? In these quick, quick moments, and I'm slowing it all down and breaking it apart? How is that not individually healing? Actually couldn't the relationship healing can't take place? If I'm not doing individual healing pieces of it? This is so much more than just teaching people how to say things differently. Or date night? Yes.
Jacqueline
I think so. Because it because the work that you're going to be doing there, it also impacts to Effies point all relationships outside of the romantic partnership. I'm curious, as you're you're talking, you're just you've described folks, there are people of course, who immediately come to mind and I think about their childhood and didn't see a great deal level of stress, but saw potentially parents who one parent was anxious, the other one was avoidant. And so I imagine that part of the strategy then of that child was to show up differently to each parent, which then again, kind of created that cycle. I'm wondering,
Julie Menanno
which is not in the disorganized attachment, by the way.
Jacqueline
So yes, tell me more about that. Yes, that's
Julie Menanno
using different organized strategies with different people in their lives and what they're bringing, but it doesn't, that doesn't mean they're at the level of distress, or the level of exaggerated behaviors or the level of inner chaos of someone with a disorganized attachment. You might say that that sort of situation is a disorganized attachment is that maybe situation on steroids? And that's a very common misconception is that oh, a disorganized attachment is simply someone who's doing both. No. Got it? And I'm not sure if that's exactly what you're saying. But I know that's a misconception out there. Yeah. And I, so I'll have something on my Instagram and someone will say, Well, what if I'm both and someone will comment, comment, you're disorganized? And I'm like, no. Please don't say that.
Jacqueline
Because at this point, the strategies that are different, but and it sounds like the piece though, that that may be an indicator, so maybe that's a question. If you're listening and you're wondering, either Am I both? Or is it really truly disorganized? How would you describe the distinction of that part of it sounded like that inner turmoil that exists that's more present with a disorganized attachment. Yeah. Can you tell talk a little bit about how someone could self identify and understand and distinguish between the two? Yeah, I
Julie Menanno
think a lot of it is just looking at sort of the outside results right like so a person with a disorganized Attachment A is just going to feel worse. Most of the time those with anxious and have We didn't attachments can have relatively good lives, right? They're just they've got these relationship blocks that are that are distressing, but they're not. It's not that chronic level of mistrust and that chronic level of kind of life chaos, their behaviors are more exaggerated and extreme in an anxious partner might might want to continue a conversation and might be coming in hot like, why don't you ever talk to me? why don't why can't we talk through this, okay, this is ridiculous. And, but then someone with a disorganized attachment like they might, they're going to these high high levels of reactivity. They're, they're the ones who are crying and then running away and slamming doors and maybe driving off after drinking or calling 1000s and 1000s of times or texting 1000s and 1000s of times, I'm not saying that someone with you know, a lower level of an anxious attachment might might not do those things, but you're just gonna see it more often more intense, more distress, more exaggerated, less functioning relationships, you might see someone with their a couples with an anxious, avoidant dynamic that are married for 80 years are together for 80 years. And they they make it they it works. I mean, it's not ideal. It's not optimal. But they have, they can manage some stability, but disorganized attachment, you're just going to see so much such higher levels of distress, even if the relationship works. It's just, it's just a lot of chaotic event after chaotic event.
Jacqueline
Yeah, you referenced the medic experience therapy as something that's really important for someone with disorganized attachment to pursue in terms of supporting them. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what what are the strategies include? So if you're listening to this episode, now, and this is really resonating, you're saying that's me, you're describing me? What are some of the next steps that they should be thinking about,
Julie Menanno
I would start there, because you might start with couples therapy, I mean, in tandem, and see how it goes, right, because a lot of times, someone with a really strong disorganized attachment, they're gonna have a hard time participating in a couples therapy, because they get so flooded. Because you're you're bringing, of course, you have to bring up relationship issues and couples therapy, right. And so they're getting flooded already by these events at home. And so you bring them into the therapy. And I am particularly skill maybe I think one of my strengths as a therapist is to help regulate dysregulated person, I use a lot of just validation, validation, validation, just really staying with them in their experience. And when you're when you're really staying with someone, someone who is will, they'll stop crying for what they're needing when they're getting what they're needing. And a lot of times what disorganised and partners are needing is just a lot of validation, they've been told they're crazy their entire lives. And part of that is because, you know, as adults, they stood there kind of doing things that are kind of out there, right, but but they're not their emotions and their experiences are not crazy, they're real. They may have never had anyone in their life that sat there and said, I get it, I hear you, I get why you're angry, you have every right to be angry in that moment. And maybe what you're doing isn't helping you. So if I can't do that with someone, if no matter what will happen is if it's not going to work with this person, they'll go up and I'll get them down, and they'll go up and that just the whole session becomes helping them try trying to help them regulate, where you're not really doing couples work if the whole session is devoted to getting this person in a headspace where they can actually work or a body space where they can actually work. So if that's the case, and the person just because of their trauma reactions, and flooding, can't participate in the work, then the first step again, going backward is somatic somatic somatic work. And really, it has to start there because they can't participate. You can't do meditation, if you get flooded, you can't be mindful if you're flooded, you know, all of these things are big, important pieces to the overall puzzle. But again, I'm gonna go back to how much can you participate in other forms of therapy. If you can do a, I would say attachment based individual therapy, it's called there's one out there that is kind of in line with what I do called E fit, which is Emotionally Focused, individual therapy. Those people are trained like me, but they work with individuals there. They're very much trained to work with attachment and regulation issues. And any kind of talk therapy can be very useful as long as you can be doing that talk therapy from a place of your window of tolerance or your your regulated place. If you're going into a therapy and you're dysregulated the whole time what's happening to your neural pathways. They're now being reinforced around the dysregulation. So again, I'm just going to I know it's annoying, but I Just keep circling back to that somatic work, I don't see any way around it with someone with a disorganized attachment.
Jacqueline
So you started off by saying in which makes sense, having conversations with a couple allows you then to see a fuller dynamic. And what if someone is not in partnership, but wants to be able to pursue support these individual a strong option? Or is it maybe something that they come with their parent or their friend or whomever they're kind of having situations with?
Julie Menanno
That's a great question, you can do relationship work without anybody in the room with you. A, there's the relationship between the therapist and the client. So all of the stuff that the client therapist relationship is, can become pretty bonding. And so because of that bond that develops, all the attachment stuff is going to show up, if the, the therapist has a secure attachment and is really grounded in themselves, they're not, they're not participating and falling into a negative cycle with the client. So instead, they can be like more of the stronger wiser parents a kind of re parenting, right, and kind of highlighting in a very gentle validating way, here's what's happening. And then that work between analyzing that relationship can start to take, you know, can start to help that person and other relationships, you can do relationship work with the model I described a minute ago, II fit emotional, emotionally focused individual therapy, uses relationships without the relationship being in the room. So that person might have a conversation with a parent who's not there. And the therapist has all sorts of techniques to getting that relationship alive in the room, they can have conversations with parts of themselves, you know, parts of themselves that they don't access very often, they can have conversations and interactions with past attachment figures, current partners, you can do relationship work, it's just a matter of being able to, you know, kind of conjure up the live felt sense of that relationship and a moment and work with
Effy
it in that way. How can somebody who is now listening to this and saying, oh, gosh, my partner has a disorganized attachment system. And now I understand what the issue is, how can they approach somebody who's so sensitive, and is likely to be triggered about this topic and encourage them to get get help? Like, what are some of the good ways to approach to regularly validate and say, Hey, like, I think I think we need to get some help on this
Julie Menanno
good question, change the status quo. So the first step is to stop participating in the same negative cycle that's reinforcing the disorganized feelings and behaviors, that is going to put that person in a position where they're going to need to get help, because now all of a sudden, their partner isn't relating to them. In the same way, this kind of circles back to that book I was talking about, I hate you don't leave me, it's about changing you and changing the way that you're responding to this person, which, which shakes up the status quo, you know, you can try saying, hey, look, I think this might be what's happening for you, you know, I've been reading about this. And if you get the result from that, which is wow, this does make a lot of sense to me. Yeah, I'm open to working on this, then that's great. But you still have to change the way that you're reacting. Because if you're in a relationship with someone with a disorganized attachment, you didn't create that disorganized attachment, but you are definitely highly likely to be doing something that's reinforcing it. You know, it could just be something like not setting boundaries about around certain behaviors. I don't know what that is, because it's different for every couple. But that is where your empowerment is to learn about how you can react differently with love, right? That the goal is out of love, love for the person because you don't want them to have to use those strategies love for yourself, because you can't be happy in this relationship, the way it is love for the relationship because you know, it can't thrive with the status quo. So you've got to do what you can do to shake up the status quo and create the environment that's going to make it more likely that person will want to get the help that they need themselves. And again, if that person is willing to get help that then I would absolutely point them in the right direction. And that would be great if people are open to it, and a lot of people actually are and I would start with getting that somatic work and and possibly if the person is open, trying to do couples work.
Jacqueline
I think that's a great description, we are very much for changing and challenging the status quo. So that's a great strategy. Yes. Wondering if you want us to share those if you want to go through the four rapid fire questions.
Julie Menanno
I don't know how rapid fire I can be but I'm gonna do my best.
Jacqueline
So we'll ask you four questions just to get a little bit know a little bit more about you. The first of which is what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self about love sex relationships?
Julie Menanno
Hands down the answer to that question, Is that the best way to go About beginning relationship changes changing yourself.
Effy
True, very, very true. Okay, what is the one romantic or sexual adventure on your bucket list?
Julie Menanno
Right now my adventure is just going away with the two of us, my husband and me. We have six kids that are, you know, 21 down to 11. And we're just so busy with them. And then I have been doing a lot of traveling for work. So he needs to be home, you know, with them. And so it's like, oh, my gosh, we just need to go away together. How are we gonna make that happen? So that's my bucket list right now. I love it. That's so good. It's a very vanilla bucket list.
Jacqueline
But time away connection, right? Yes. Okay. Third question is, how do you challenge the status quo. I think I challenge the
Julie Menanno
status quo with the idea that even in the context of attachment theory, there's so much self work that you can do. I mean, it seems kind of contradictory that you need someone to show up for you to have a secure attachment in that relationship. But at the same time, there's so much that you can do on your own to create security and safety in the relationship that will make it more likely that you're going to end up getting that responsiveness that you're looking for.
Effy
Last but not least, we are a curious bunch around here. And we are curious to what you're curious about lately. Lately, I've
Julie Menanno
been really diving into negative SEC cycles between couples. So what I mostly work with is the emotional cycle, emotionally reaching and responding and comfort and how we're managing conflict. And when I say emotional, it's attachment and emotion, I kind of use interchangeably sometimes because I'm talking about attachment needs, which are the building blocks of secure attachment. In any given moment, I need to know I feel valued, accepted, appreciated, like I can get it right for you. And I'm working on that. And I'm trying to really strengthen having those met attachment needs that felt sense of met attachment needs in a relationship and being able to repair the ruptures of the when those have ruptures happen in moments. How fast is this couple able to repair. And what I see a lot of times is a couple who came into it with not not a whole lot of you know, problems in their sex life, their sex life gets better, because their emotional world gets better that that's not always the case. In fact, I've seen sex lives get worse because people are finding more authentic, vulnerable parts of themselves in the emotional work and it can make sex feel more vulnerable and risky. And then the other piece of it is I've seen sex lives just not improved because there's such a negative sex cycle entrenched in that couple's relationship that it needs to be dealt with on its own. And so that's where my headspace is right now.
Jacqueline
Such an interesting conversation. Julie, thank you so much for your time today.
Effy
Thank you, Julie.
Jacqueline
If you want to learn more about Julie Manana, visit her website, the secure relationship.com and find her on Instagram at the secure relationship. And while you're on your phone or computer, share our podcast with a friend quickly rate the show, leave a comment and subscribe on Apple podcast or follow us on Spotify and Stitcher. It's going to take a few seconds of your time but it's going to make a big difference. And visit our website. We are curious foxes.com to find blog posts, reading lists, past episodes recommendations based on topics like jealousy, non monogamy identity and more. And did you know we are also on YouTube? Go to we are curious Fox is on YouTube to listen to any of our episodes while seeing the gorgeous artwork that's been selected for each and every one. If you want to support the show and continue to indulge your curiosity, join us on Patreon at we are curious foxes, where you can find many episodes, podcast extras that couldn't make it to the show and over 50 videos from educator led workshops. And if you have questions, stories or podcast ideas, there are a few ways that you can find us. First, go to our Facebook group to connect with other listeners. Or you can email us or send us a voice memo at listening at we are curious foxes.com Or you can record a question for the show by calling us at 646-450-9079
Effy
This episode is produced by Effie blue and Jacqueline missa with help from Jamar Eric Kisha. Our editor is Nina Pollack, who we feel very securely attached. Our intro music is composed by dev Saha. We are so grateful for their work, and we're grateful to you for listening. As always, stay curious friends. The outro
Jacqueline
if you want to learn more about juvenilia it was like I was like an audiobook and Chapter One did a great big they can't. Okay, and seen it.
Effy
Curious Fox podcast is not and will never be the final word on any topic. We solely aim to encourage curiosity and provide a space for exploration through connection and story. We encourage you to listen with an open and curious mind, and we'll look forward to your feedback. Stay curious friends.
(outro)
Stay curious and curious, curious and curious. Stay curious. Stay curious.
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