Attachment Disorders
ANXIETY, FEAR OF REJECTION, AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS CAN BE SIGNS
Attachment Disorders
Many women who struggle with love addiction and/or intimacy disorders also struggle with insecure attachment.
What is Insecure Attachment?
It begins to develop in infancy when parents or caregivers are unable to provide the child with sufficient structure, recognition, understanding, safety, and love. As adults, this inability to attach as children can lead one to…
- Avoid intimacy and close, emotional connections
- Become anxious and fearful
- Be emotionally available to loved ones one minute, and rejecting the next
- Be insensitive to the needs of others and to their own needs.
- Become aggressive and angry
- Act out sexually, emotionally, or with drugs and alcohol.
- Developmental health disorders, like bipolar, depression, and PTSD.
Insecure Attachment and Love and Intimacy Disorders
Love addiction and intimacy disorders much like other addictive and compulsive behaviors, indicate dysfunction in the person’s learned attachment patterns. The dysfunction affects their personality structure, and leaves them with an inability to self-soothe or seek comfort from others. These problematic attachment patterns are often the reason why women act out sexually or in obsessive love relationships. They are seeking to self-medicate and soothe themselves through unrealistic relationship fantasies, expectations, and sexual behaviors.
Attachment Disorder Treatment
Willow House’s women-only atmosphere allows patients to drop their facades and invites them to work through the shame and pain that drives their love addiction. In a safe and nurturing community composed of their peers, women are guided on their journey of recovery by examining the underlying causes of addiction and co-occurring disorders. The goal is for these individuals to gain the courage to face difficult issues, including grief and loss; heal from emotional trauma; and become accountable for their own feelings, behaviors, and recovery.