Attachment Theory
Hard-to-shake beliefs about ourselves and the world are formed during the first thousand days of our lives. John Bowlby spent a lifetime researching and developing Attachment Theory dealing with beliefs formed during these early years as a result of mother-child relationships. Many therapies today have roots in Attachment Theory.
Attachment Therapy
Even with attachment so dependent on early years, Bowlby broke from Freudian therapy with its roots in the patient’s past. As with Cognitive Therapy, Attachment Therapy focuses on the here and now, bringing up past events when they might shed light on the client’s current life.
The client is encouraged to consider how current expectations, feelings, and behavior may be the product of what he has been told about himself during childhood and adolescence. He is encouraged to recognize that his image of himself and of others that often emanates from a parent, may not be appropriate or justified.
However understandable his anger may be, he is helped to see that an unhappy past cannot be changed and to continue fighting old battles is counterproductive.
Providing a Secure Base
The therapist attempts to establish a secure attachment the client never had. In a sense, she takes the role of Mother, who provides the child with a secure base from which to explore the world. She strives to be reliable, attentive, and sympathetically responsive. She attempts to see the world empathetically though the patient’s eyes.
The client considers the ways he engages in relationships with significant others. What are his expectations of his own feelings and behavior? What are his expectations of the feelings and behavior of others? What unconscious biases does he bring to a relationship? What are those biases in relation to why and when things go badly?
He can work on imagining and developing a more positive and helpful alternative image to replace the unreasonable image of his past experiences. To stop being a slave to old and unconscious stereotypes, and to feel, think, and act in new ways – at any age.
An overlaying ongoing relationship in Attachment Therapy is the relationship with the therapist. This will be influenced by the client’s perception and expectations and by the models the therapist holds of her own parents and self.
Searching for Gado
Bowlby acknowledges to provide the client with a secure base is not an easy task. The therapist must be aware that the client’s adverse experiences may make it difficult for him to believe the therapist can be trusted or even behave kindly or understand his situation.
On the other hand, the unexpectedly attentive and sympathetic responses the client receives may lead him to think the therapist can provide more than is realistic. And the therapist comes to the relationship with her own views of herself and others developed during her own childhood and adolescence.
I have not encountered a therapist who could provide me with a secure base.
Is such a therapist a mythological being?
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
