A Conceptual Understanding of Disengagement (Avoidance)
Healthy differentiation is the 12th Relationship Competency of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD) and an essential aspect of thriving relationships. Disengagement is one form of reactivity that blocks healthy differentiation. Disengagement begins as an adaptive strategy to find a sense of stability. By shutting down and shutting out a caregiver who is dangerous or neglectful of your needs, you attempted to create some sense of emotional stability as a child.
But this is not a completely tenable strategy since your survival depends on the ability to cultivate intimacy. As Thomas Lewis talks about in his book, "A General Theory of Love," an infant's life depends on intimacy with a caregiver to regulate basic physiological and emotional functioning. This regulation through connection continues throughout life.
If the reactive pattern of disengagement is present for you, then you had formative experiences in which you moved toward intimacy and got the message that it wasn't okay and possibly that it was dangerous. In your adult life, as you become more intimate with someone, these previous experiences unconsciously motivate you to defend against intimacy.
Defending against intimacy can take a variety of forms. Let's look at three common reactive patterns: mistrust and suspicion, avoidance, and cognitive dissociation. You can find a list of examples of all three of these in the table that follows.
1. Mistrust & Suspicion
Mistrust and suspicion can be habits of body, heart, and mind. When there is any ambiguity about what's happening, reactivity sometimes arises to fill in the blanks. The central thinking error with mistrust and suspicion is that if you can predict hurt, it will hurt less when it happens. Thus, your mind can run wild predicting moments of betrayal, rejection, and abandonment. Unfounded mistrust and suspicion can push you towards all sorts of behaviors like spying, encouraging gossip, and asking a lot of investigative questions of the person for whom you have mistrust. Questions like the following are cues that your mind might be caught in this particular form of reactivity:
Where were you?
Who were you with?
Was that person flirting with you?
Are you really committed to this relationship?
Why are you late?
Do you really care about me?
Each time you engage in behaviors like interrogating, seeking gossip, or spying, you reinforce the reactive pattern. This reactive pattern blocks the formation of a secure bond which would bring you relief from the anxiety of mistrust and suspicion.
2. Avoiding
Avoiding is sometimes a less obvious form of defending against intimacy. Avoidance patterns often leverage socially acceptable behaviors like; overworking, becoming intoxicated, and pursuing achievements. If you are running a reactive pattern of avoidance and someone close to you challenges you, you might find yourself responding one or more of the following ways:
Denying responsibility with phrases like, "That's just the way I am," or "You're just trying to control me."
Criticizing the other person and making accusations that they are “needy” or being selfish.
Gaslighting the other person with phrases like, “You are imagining things.” “It’s all in your head.”
Making unilateral decisions that affect both of you. This might include, for example, making large purchases with shared money, planning a major trip and telling your friend or partner at the last minute, deciding not to show up at a major event and texting your decision right as it starts.
If you are running an avoidance pattern, you likely resist commitment and opt for vague agreements that leave a way out should intimacy become too much. Even in the moment of making small decisions with someone, revealing what you really want or don't want and committing to an answer can feel scary when you are caught in this pattern. Authenticity seems like a risk. And without authenticity there is no true intimacy.
Ironically, if you run an avoidance pattern you may pursue a facsimile of intimacy in relationships or situations in which you don't have to fully reveal yourself. Such instances of sudden "intimacy" trigger a rush of pleasant body reactions while not challenging a sense of safety. This can trigger a pattern of addiction to emotionally seducing others.
Of course, all these avoidance patterns block the opportunity to create a secure and healthy relationship to intimacy.
3. Cognitive dissociation
A more colloquial term for cognitive dissociation is compartmentalization. When you hear someone say something like, “I am a different person depending on the situation I am in,” they are compartmentalizing parts of themselves relative to role or function. This is different from deciding how to focus your attention. You choose to focus your attention in a certain way at work, for example, but you still maintain a sense of your values, self-connection, and a sense of your life outside of work.
When someone dissociates they lose track of parts of themselves, including their own values. It is this type of dissociation that can lead someone to violate their own or another’s values. For example, someone could value monogamy while at home, but while away on business trips they dissociate from this value and have affairs.
Another common example of dissociation is a lack of memory about what was said or done in the heat of an argument such that it is easy for this person to go on as if nothing had happened. In this case, it might seem like the person has recovered quickly, but in reality they have simply compartmentalized the emotion or the difficulty and lost access to their own experience.
If you recognize yourself in this description of disengagement, one of the most important elements of healing you can seek is to find people who can truly offer consistent authenticity and compassionate presence. This might be a therapist, spiritual director, or close friend. Such companionship gives you the opportunity to risk intimacy and experience safety and care. It is, of course, up to you to decide to take that risk to share more vulnerability with those who have the capacity to receive you with respect and acceptance.
Practice
For now you can begin by simply setting an intention to notice a single habit of disengagement. For the coming week, each time you notice the impulse to disengage in this particular way, ask yourself to pause for one full inhale and exhale and then ask yourself if a part of you would like to continue the engagement.
