Disorganized Attachment in Infancy: A Review of the Phenomenon and its Implications for Clinicians and Policy-Makers

Attachment patterns

Infant patterns of attachment were identified in a formal laboratory situation known as the Strange Situation by Mary Ainsworth and colleagues in 1978. The research looked at how infants explored an unfamiliar room and how they responded to a caregiver when distressed by brief separations. Ainsworth and subsequent researchers identified both secure and organised-insecure patterns of attachment (termed insecure-avoidant and insecure-ambivalent). These infant-caregiver patterns of attachment have been shown to be relationship specific, which means that an infant may show one pattern of attachment to a particular caregiver, and a different pattern to another caregiver.

Disorganised attachment

Main and Solomon (1986) observed that not all infants responded to the Strange Situation in the patterns identified by Ainsworth and colleagues. Some infants displayed conflicted, disoriented or fearful behaviours on reunion with their caregiver. Following their observations, Main and Solomon introduced the notion of another attachment pattern: disorganised attachment.