ABSTRACT
The chapter outlines the principles of attachment theory as a foundation for understanding how totalist systems work. After explaining the adaptive, organized forms of attachment I detail the dissociating cognitive effects and the emotional impairments created within a maladaptive disorganized relationship. Referring to the latest neuroscientific and attachment research I show the causes and effects of disorganized attachment. By isolating followers, totalist leaders create this type of relationship even with those who previously had organized attachment relationships. This helps to make sense of the features of totalism which work together to create and maintain of this central disorganizing control mechanism.
