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Counselling and Attachment theory in CENT: Reviewing Attachment theory and neo-Freudian psychoanalysis Copyright (c), Jim Byrne, 2010/2011 - Updated 28th June 2011 Introduction
Indeed, REBT theory often seems to deny the impact of childhood on the emotional development of the individual. But the attachment style of the individual is crucially important for all their relationships throughout their life span, including adult relationships of a marital type. An individual who is securely attached to his or her mother (and father) will tend to have relatively effortlessly good relationships with friends, peers, and later, marriage partners. An individual who is insecurely attached is likely to struggle in all of their relationships throughout their lives - at home and at work - unless they later achieved what is called 'earned security'. Earned security means that the deficits of caring and attention that the individual experienced in their formative years is later made up by a 'corrective relationship' - which could be an exceptionally good marriage, or a counselling or psychotherapy relationship. Two main patterns of insecure attachment have been identified, by Dr John Bowlby and Dr Mary Ainsworth. According to Jeremy Holmes, "The two main patterns can be formulated along the lines of:
Your early childhood experiences effectively 'wire up' your brain for a particular type of attachment style, depending upon your actual relationship experiences. Indeed, the first 12 months of life give you the basic, non-verbal experience of what a relationship is, and what you can expect from relationships. These internal 'working models' of relationship can be modified by later experiences, but not effortlessly, and sometimes people get stuck for decades in a dysfunctional approach to relationship in general. (For more detail on how you childhood experience wires up your brain for a style of relating, see my comments on David Wallin's book on Attachment in psychotherapy)***
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~~~ Where does CENT counselling stand in relation to Attachment theory? (i) Similarities: CENT accepts the basic thesis of Attachment theory, which claims (with considerable scientific support) that each individual begins its life with an urge to seek an ‘attachment figure', normally mother, initially, and later, father. And that they become securely attached if their carers relate to them in ways that they can experience as caring, sensitive, and supportive/reassuring[1]. The apparent function of this innate urge is survival of the species. New mothers are also assumed to be ‘wired up' by both nature and culture, to seek to serve the newborn baby in ways that enhance the child's survival. These two urges can be seen in all forms of mammals. (ii) Differences: CENT begins with a model of the interpenetrating mother/child circles (see Figures 9.1, 9.10 and 9.11 in Chapter 9, of ‘Therapy After Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: the birth of CENT'***); and we see the development of the individual, whether securely or insecurely attached, as a ‘dialectical process'. It may begin with a damaged parent imparting that damage to her/his child; but it is continued by that now-damaged child, interacting from their damaged nature, with a damaged parent/parents. However, CENT does not always or invariably seek the source of an individual's problems in early childhood. Sometimes this is necessary, but at other times it is sufficient to examine the kinds of ‘frames' (implicit and inferred) through which the individual is interpreting their current reality. Defining Attachment Theory more clearly
Firstly, attachment theory was originated by Dr John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst, based on his observations of the negative impact of protracted separation of young children from their parents, especially their mothers[2]. This is how it was described by Gullestad (2001)[3]: In a documentary film made by Dr John Bowlby for the World Health Organization, he reports on "...the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe. The major conclusion was that to grow up mentally healthy, ‘the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment...'." Here is a link to a little five minute video clip by a therapist who did his postdoctoral research at the Tavistock Institute, in London, when John Bowlby was still alive and working there: Secondly, attachment theory seems to be part of the post-WW2 movement away from classical Freudianism: (Gomez, 1997). The British Object Relations school of psychoanalysis - involving Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Michael Balint and Harry Guntrip - seems to have been a big part of the cultural milieu in which John Bowlby arose and developed. However, there were significant differences between all of these post-Freudian psychoanalysts, some of whom were never tolerated by Anna Freud or the other heirs to Sigmund Freud's tradition, and some of whom, like Winnicott, straddled both camps. And here is a two minute video clip of Dr John Bowlby making the central claim of his work: that we are a product of our childhood, and for better or worse, we need to remind ourselves just how good or how bad it was. If it was bad, we will be much better off knowing that that was the case. The truth will set us free. We need to complete our experience of whatever was the case in our relationships with our primary carers during the first few years of our lives: Thirdly, some of the Object Relations theorists emphasized the inner working of the individual's psyche - which was the classical Freudian view - and some emphasized the role of the environment- which was not. Bowlby, like Karen Horney in the USA, was adamant that people were strongly shaped by their environment, and especially by their formative relationships with their mothers (and fathers) - or their main carers[4]. Fourth, Bowlby's ideas on attachment were subjected to empirical enquiry and further elaboration my Mary Ainsworth, who developed the ‘strange situation' research model, in which mothers withdraw from a room in which their toddler is playing, a stranger enters, then mother returns after three minutes, and the toddler's reaction to mother is assessed. This work gave rise to the categories of ‘secure attachment', ‘avoidant attachment', ‘resistant attachment'.[5]
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~~~ The role of the individual's social environment
CENT takes a middle position between Freud/Ellis on the one side, and Horney/Bowlby on the other. We believe that the relationship between the mother/child is dialectical; that the child internalizes working models of how mother relates to him; how father relates to him; and he relates to them and the world on the basis of those models. The character/personality of the child is driven by his/her cumulative, interpretive experience of encountering ‘good enough' or ‘not good enough' carers, and significant others (like siblings, relatives, neighbours, teachers, etc). The centrality of relationship
In the USA, Margaret Mahler and her associates conducted observational research on young children and their mothers, to develop a theory of ego development[8]. This research demonstrated a clear connection between the quality of the relationship between mother and child, on the one hand, and the degree of emotional disturbance of the child, on the other. John Bowlby, in the UK, created his theory of Attachment on the basis of his wartime experiences of dealing with children separated from their parents by war, or hospitalization, or other forms of institutionalization. He argued that children who are separated from their parents at a young age are likely to be disturbed in ways that will affect their later adult functioning. This thesis has been extensively researched and validated. ~~~ If you find this page interesting or useful, then please consider posting a link to your profile page at you favourite social networking site, so you friends and followers can also enjoy it:
~~~ The need for emotional availability, and sensitive caring However, it is not just separation that can damage the relationship between mother and child, but also any form of absence, neglect, or abuse (including physical, sexual or emotional abuse). A child's emotional well-being can be protected by ‘good enough' mothering, and ‘good enough' fathering, and the provision of a ‘secure base'. In this connection, ‘good enough' means: sensitive, caring, supportive; and a secure base means a person to return to when problems are encountered, to ‘refuel' and gain reassurance, etc. According to Bowlby (1988)[9], children develop an ‘internal working model' of their relationship with mother, then father, and so on. These then become templates for their later relationships. Thus, if there are significant disturbances or distortions in their earliest relationships, they will take them into later relationships, because those are the only ‘maps of the territory' (of ‘schemas' for relationship) that they possess. And this is why Bowlby (1988) argues that one of the tasks of a psychotherapist is to provide their client with a secure base from which to explore (their issues), and ‘good enough' substitute-parenting. This calls for ‘emotional communication' between client and therapist, and not just logical and rational ‘cognitive' or thinking-based communications. Attachment in counselling and psychotherapy
The subject of how to integrate Attachment theory and psychoanalysis has been taken up by David Wallin (2007)[10]. David's work, and the CENT perspective, will change how the self is seen in counselling and psychotherapy. The conventional view of a self is that it is a ‘separate', ‘individual', ‘discrete entity'. However, in my CENT models, the individual is modelled as a social being, ‘connected to others' - especially the mother, and then the father, and later significant others. I have some reservations about some aspects of Wallin's presentation. However, there is little doubt that David's model has some significant validity. For example, his emphasis on the ‘somatic self' as the foundation of the person seems intuitively right, and fits into the CENT model. The emotional self is an extension and refinement of the somatic self - a self that is felt in the viscera and based in the limbic system of the brain. David cites Fonagy et al (2002)[11], Schore (2003)[12] and others as proposing "...that regulation of emotions is fundamental to the development of the self and that attachment relationships are the primary context within which we learn to regulate our affects - that is, to access, modulate, and use our emotions. The relational patterns that characterize our first attachments are, fundamentally, patterns of affect regulation that subsequently determine a great deal about the nature of our own unique responsiveness to experience - that is, about the nature of the self. Correspondingly, in the new attachment relationship that the therapist is attempting to generate, the (client's) emotions are central and their effective regulation - which allows them to be felt, modulated, communicated, and understood - is usually at the very heart of the process that enables the (client) to heal and to grow". (Page 64). This is a most important area for consideration by all counsellors and psychotherapists, psychologists and psychoanalysts. And this time, what I notice to be missing from David's presentation is how ‘good and evil' get into human behaviour. The third element of David's model of the self is the ‘representational self', about which he says: "Bowlby argued that it was an evolutionary necessity to have a representational world that mapped the real one". That is to say, that we have a map in our heads of the spaces in which we live, and the experiences we have had in those spaces. "To function effectively, we needed (and still need) knowledge of the world and of ourselves, and this knowledge must be portable. We derive such knowledge from memories of past experience, and we use this knowledge to make predictions about present and future experience. Hence, the 'internal working model'. But the map, as they say, is not the territory". (Page 64). That is a very important point. All of our stored representations are cumulative and interpretive, as shown in the CENT model (See Chapter 9, below). And as I have argued in Chapter 9, our internal working models are not images or templates for individuals we have known, but rather what Douglas Hofstadter (2007)[13] called ‘strange loops' - and which I have clarified in my CENT writings as ‘strange loops of experience of encountering others' in which our sense of the other and our sense of self get braided together into one, so that at our very foundations are strange loops of experience of being changed by others and changing them, in which it is impossible to separate out an 'individual I'. ~~~ If you find this page interesting or useful, then please consider posting a link to your profile page at you favourite social networking site, so you friends and followers can also enjoy it:
~~~ Attachment in CENT ... To read more about how Attachment theory is treated and applied in counselling sessions in CENT, please see the second e-book on CENT: 'Integrating Cognitive & Emotive Counselling & Therapy: How to apply CENT in counselling, psychotherapy and self-help'. ~~~ ~~~ If you derive value from this web page, and you want to support the public educational role of this website, then please make a small donation:
~~~ Where am I up to with Attachment Theory? Updated: 27th June 2011 Part 1: Seven elements of Attachment Theory
1. You do not need to be loved or approved by anybody in order to survive in life; but you do need to be loved and approved in order to thrive! 2. If you currently feel insecure in your (adult) relationships, then it may be that you had an insecure relationship with your mother (and/or your father). 3. If either of your parents was not sufficiently sensitive, caring and tuned into your emotional state, or they failed to provide both a secure base and appropriate space for you to develop a sense of autonomy, then you are likely to feel insecure in your current relationships as an adult. 4. However, there is the concept of "earned security", which means learning how to be secure with another, loving, caring human being after leaving home. 5. If you have not been able to achieve "earned security" with a loving friend or partner, then you can go to see a counsellor who understands attachment theory, and they can help you to achieve "earned security". 6 Once you have achieved "earned security" you will be able to feel happier and more securely connected to a sex-love partner, and to have happier relationships in general. 7. Early childhood experiences determine the pattern of relationships that you evolve, but they are not set in stone. You can learn to relate healthily with others, oven if you came from the most dysfunctional of home backgrounds. ~~~ Some of this learning had come from David Wallin's book, and some from Bowlby (1988) on the secure base; some from Fonagy; and also other sources. I was building up a good understanding of attachment in relationships. As I read through David Wallin's Chapter 7, I extracted some key learning points to do with both mother/child relationship and also with counsellor/client relationships. Much of this learning was either implicit or explicitly stated in what David wrote, or easily inferred or extrapolated from his statements. Here was my first list: ~~~ If you find this page interesting or useful, then please consider posting a link to your profile page at you favourite social networking site, so you friends and followers can also enjoy it:
~~~ Part 2: Attachment and the counsellor's approach
Today I want to quote one paragraph from David's book, and then to extrapolate from that to a question that interests me greatly: What must a counsellor or therapist do to be a good Attachment Therapist - to be able to reliably help the client to build a secure attachment to them, which they can then generalize to their major social relationships? To set the scene, I must first quote the preceding paragraph as follows:
I will now present Lyons-Ruth's four elements, in the left-hand column of the table that follows, and I will try to extrapolate from them to what a good therapist should be aiming to do with their clients:
When I reviewed the description of the ‘good enough therapist' that I generated in column 2, above, I felt this was a bit thin. Some of the things which are missing for me include: 1. Rogers' three ‘core conditions': Carl Rogers' three core conditions for effective counselling are sometimes rendered as REG: Respect; Empathy; and Genuineness. Some elements of those three appear in column 2 above, but not clearly enough for my liking. (However, Rogers is not an absolute guide for me, in that I find his Unconditional Positive Regard [UPR] to be a highly screwy idea, and a promoter of immorality. See my critique here***.) 2. Loving-kindness: The other way that Rogers' ideas get presented are: Genuineness, Non-possessive caring (or non-possessive love), and Empathy[11]. This quality of non-possessive love, or loving-kindness, is well described and illustrated in a little book by Jack Kornfield[12]. 3. Mindfulness: Mindfulness is captured by the Ram Dass injunction: ‘Be here now!' It is about present centredness; not drifting off into the past or future - paying attention to the client in front of me. And there are perhaps some other elements that I would ideally like to see in the ‘good enough' Attachment Therapist. For examples: An ability to help the client to reframe their experience; to re-write their life narrative; to help the client be more assertive; and to help the client to ‘complete' their previously undigested past. ~~~ If you derive value from this web page, and you want to support the public educational role of this website, then please make a small donation:
~~~ Part Three: More on Attachment Theory for the psychotherapist
Firstly, we can say that attachment theory has identified what is essential for healthy psychological development of every individual: (a) Initially, Dr John Bowlby gave emphasis to the idea that the parents should be accessible to the child at all times of need; and: (b) Later on, he emphasized that parents must be responsiveas well as accessible. (This change was prompted by the research findings of Mary Ainsworth, who described the importance of the parents' sensitive responsiveness to the child's nonverbal signals). Secondly, when babies receive the attention they crave, they prove to be less needy than those babies who do not receive sensitive responsiveness when they cry. From this I infer that client's who get the kind of attention they need, will move on through their therapy much quicker, and more surely, than those clients who meet with cool and less responsive therapists. (See also the qualities of the therapist that I derived in Part Two above.) Third, Attachment theory suggests that collaborative communication is about getting to know the mind of another human being. (We may not consciously know that that is what is happening, and we might not use those verbal labels, but that, it seems, is what is nonverbally, and non-consciously, happening). The client needs to know which of their statements or actions produces which responses in the therapist. The therapist must be transparent in showing the contingency (or dependence) of a particular response upon a particular stimulus from the client. This is what helps the client to construct a model of ‘what is going on' in the mind of the other, reflected in their own mind. Fourth, it seems important to help the client to "feel felt" - that is, to see their nonverbal affective behaviours reflected in the nonverbal affective responses of the therapist. If the client cries, the therapist may reflect this by showing a sad face, ‘marked as' a reflection. Therapeutic communication needs to be collaborative - or shared - as well as contingent (each stimulus is shown a specific response; and each response produces a new reflection). In this process of collaboration and revealing the connections between stimulus and response, the therapist must aim for a high level of affective attunement: or ‘getting the client's emotional state' and reflecting it back in a different register. This process of providing affectively attuned responses to the client, which helps them to feel felt, probably depends upon intuitive right-brain communication, which depends less on words than on reading faces and body language, and responding with a good reflection of what is sensed. There is recent research from Germany that seems to suggest that this might be best facilitated by the kind of ‘mindfulness' which comes from having the therapist practice regular meditation. (Footnote[4]) When a client gets repeated experiences of this kind of emotionally attuned responsiveness, this may generate positive expectations of ‘feeling felt' - feeling understood and accepted by others - which may sediment into a secure model of a sensitive relationship; a working model of secure attachment. Or, as David Wallin puts it, "such experiences are lessons in how to have a comfortable and effective relationship - with oneself and one's emotions as well as with others". (Page 107). Of course, we must not create unrealistic expectations here. Counsellors and therapists, like mothers and fathers, are imperfect and error-prone humans. We cannot always ‘get it right' for our clients. But we should aim high. We should aim to get close to understanding where our client is coming from 5 times out of every 6; and we should learn how to track down and resolve any misunderstandings that arise between us. Clients can learn from us that misunderstandings can be resolved, and "distress can be weathered because it can be relieved", as David Wallin puts it. ~~~ If you find this page interesting or useful, then please consider posting a link to your profile page at you favourite social networking site, so you friends and followers can also enjoy it:
~~~ Part Four: Reciprocal influence and attachment style
More generally, it seems that humans, from the beginning to the end of their lives, live in a matrix of mutual reciprocal influence. When our schemas are flexible and growth oriented, we change each other; and when our schemas ‘freeze' or become fixed - as in sexist and racist attitudes, for example, which are immune to new information - we reinforce each other's existing beliefs and attitudes. In the early stages of life, of a baby with its mother, there is an obvious power imbalance, and it would be surprising if the mother did not have more influence over the baby than the baby has over the mother. Parents who respond sensitively to their child can shift an official assessment of their child's behaviour and emotional state from ‘difficult' - meaning difficult to soothe or stimulate - to ‘easy' to cope with and relate to. On the other hand, a less skilful parent can turn an ‘easy' baby into a ‘difficult' one in a matter of months. (Wallin, 2007, page 108; and Belsky et al, 1991[10]). Another important point made by Dr Wallin is that parents do, of course, have greater responsibility than the child for shaping the relationship that emerges with their child. As to whether they have any flexibility in the matter depends upon your view of "what" a parent is. And the CENT view is that a parent is a type of "automaton" - a pre-programmed being that operates tacitly, non-consciously; and thus it merely passes on its own experience of relationship to its offspring. Of course, there is always the possibility that a parent might be "woken up" by their parenting incompetence or a crisis in their relationship with their child, and they could set about reprogramming their ‘attachment style' and ‘relational approach'. However, this is probably only less slightly uncommon than hen's teeth! (And even for those who set about such change, it is not perfectly straightforward or assured of total success!) But back to the main point. Mother and baby do ‘braid together', as described above; and part of that process is how they monitor each other's communications; and respond and initiate - initiate and respond - in a turn-taking mirroring process - or failure to mirror each other. The pattern of interactions between mother and baby is different for each pair, or dyad; and those patterns are shaped by the responsiveness and attunement of the emotional state of each partner, mother and baby. According to David Wallin: "Sequences of match(ing), mismatch(ing), and repair(ing) (of communicative actions, between mother and baby) are seen to occur with split-second coordination. Studies using split-screen video (with the baby's face and torso on one side and the mother's on the other) have revealed such an exquisite synchrony of vocal as well as facial expressions that each partner's behaviour in the interaction can be predicted, in twelfth of a second increments, from that of the other. Infants at four months were videotaped interacting with their mothers and at 12 months were assessed using the Strange Situation*** protocol. Of greatest interest is the finding that what differentiates relationships that foster secure attachment from those that do not is the degree of bidirectional coordination in the dyad." (Pages 108-109). Based on observations of how well mothers and their babies communicate in the first months of life, researchers can predict very accurately how secure a baby will be, at the age of one year, when tested in a lab situation - involving mothers' presence and her absence for three minutes, and how the mother and baby relate when she returns. Three levels of ‘coordination' of communication between mother and baby were identified: (1) high levels, which seemed to be about ‘excessively vigilant monitoring', suggesting insecurity or anxiety; (2) low levels, which seemed to be about withdrawal of one or both parties from each other, or inhibition of desire for contact, or a poor fit between the mother and child; and (3) midrange coordination, where coordination of communication (stimulus and response) ‘is present but not obligatory' (Beebe and Lachmann, 2002, page 104), which Wallin describes as "(optimum) communication of infants and parents (which) is close but not perfect". (Page 109). Dr Wallin interestingly highlights the idea that these findings have "implications for psychotherapy as well as parenting". What are the implications for counselling and therapy? Initially we might speculate that counsellors who are excessively vigilant in monitoring the communication of their clients, and those who are withdrawn or inhibited in their monitoring activities, are likely to be less helpful in developing a secure emotional base for the client than therapists who operate in the midrange, where "coordination of communication between client and therapist is present, but not obligatory". There is attentiveness, but not obsessiveness. There is concern about the relationship and the communication patterns, but not anxiety. There is acceptance of fallibility and imperfection on both sides. And there is an active practice of repairing the communication when it goes awry. I would also add, finally, that I aim for a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative moments in my relationships with clients, which is probably about as good as it is likely to get! ~~~ If you derive value from this web page, and you want to support the public educational role of this website, then please make a small donation:
~~~ Part Five. Attachment in psychotherapy: How to proceed
I have been following the chain of Dr David Wallin's thoughts on attachment in psychotherapy, in his book of that name[3]. I have blogged about the first seven chapters of that book, and a couple of weeks ago I finished reading Chapter 7. I still have not completely integrated the end of Chapter 7 into my understanding of attachment relationships. In particular, there is an outstanding issue of how to model the emergence of self-regulation and interactive-regulation in the life of a child. I will write about that at a later date. I then went on to read Chapter 8, and this is where some deeper problems emerge. In earlier parts of my review of David Wallin's book, I concluded that Mary Main and Peter Fonagy seemed to me to be ‘cognitive extremists' who attribute too much consciousness to individual humans, and too much use of elaborated linguistic code. (See posts passim on the Happiness Blog***). At the beginning of Part III of this book, comprising Chapters 8-10, the author introduces his transition from attachment theory to clinical practice. In the process, David says: "Because our first relational experiences are mainly lived outside the domain of language, our crucial internalizations of early relationships register as representations, rules, and models that cannot be linguistically retrieved. For these hard-to-reach representations to later be modified - for old working models to be updated - they must be accessed, that is, experientially engaged. In therapy, such representations in the patient often become accessible only as they are communicated through other-than-verbal channels. Thus a focus on the realms of preverbal, nonverbal and paraverbal experience is indispensable - both to make sense of the original learning that occurred in the (client's) first relationships and to facilitate the relearning that can occur in the new relationship with the therapist. This is the subject matter of Chapter 8". Page 113. This statement might help you to understand why I then had some considerable problem with Chapter 8. David goes on to say that "...what we cannot recall explicitly - and cannot put into words - is almost invariably expressed in other ways".
This moves me into totally unknown territory: working with enactments of the unthought known; working with evocations of the unthought known; and working with embodiments of the unthought known. Pages 122-131. Indeed, David goes further and implies that to incorporate Attachment Theory into psychotherapy, we must necessarily use the ‘relational model', and not any other model. (I may be misunderstanding him, but this will become clearer by the time I have digested Chapters 8-10 a number of times). This is very different from the view taken by Dr Bowlby, who thought that Attachment theory should become a core element of all systems of counselling and psychotherapy. As I was passing through Halifax Central Library on Tuesday of this week, I found a book by Jeremy Holmes on John Bowlby and Attachment Theory[4]. Chapter 8 of that book is about ‘Attachment theory and the practice of psychotherapy'. One of the suggestions of this chapter is that effective therapy includes a process of helping the client to improve their ‘autobiographical competence'. This is more comfortable territory for me: narrative therapy, stories, and scripts. ~~~
Holmes considers that there are five key themes that impact the client's sense of secure or insecure attachment - as opposed to David Wallin's mono-focal emphasis on non-verbal communication. (Of course, again, I may be misunderstanding David here; and he may broaden that out in Chapters 9 and 10). The five key themes identified by Holmes (1993) are: "The need for a secure therapeutic base; the role of real trauma (as opposed to phantasy) in the origins of neurosis; affective processing, especially of loss and separation; the place of cognitions in therapy; and the part played by ‘companionable interaction' between therapist and (client)". (Page 151). Holmes seems to liberate me from having to narrow my focus down to the non-verbal communication of the client. But I have to admit that CENT theory sees human "individuals" as being constructed in dialectical relationships, in which social experiences of encounters (with mother, mainly, initially) result in sedimented layers of cumulative, interpretive experiences. And the deepest, most basic layers are non-verbal. Linguistic understandings come later in the development of the child, and most of our earliest experiences, including our earliest experiences of learning language-based distinctions, are inaccessible to recall. But in fact, one of the propositions of CENT is that our cumulative, interpretive experiences are stored in long-term memory, in the form of electrochemical corollaries of schemas, scripts, stories and other narrative elements, below the level of conscious awareness, and permanently beyond direct, conscious inspection. Nevertheless, I balk at the idea of exploring those deepest, non-verbal layers of experience with my clients; just as much as I balk at the idea of assuming they are super-conscious, linguistic beings who normally talk to themselves about their experiences using elaborated code. So I am in some kind of intellectual crisis, which is going to involve some kind of hibernation, reflection, and struggle. I do not know what will result! ~~~ If you find this page interesting or useful, then please consider posting a link to your profile page at you favourite social networking site, so you friends and followers can also enjoy it:
~~~ Part Six: Conclusion
Most of all, I cannot imagine giving up all of that so I can focus my attention on the non-verbal realm of experience with my counselling clients. But I will take on this challenge. I will read Chapters 8-10 of David Wallin's book, and write some more on this subject when I have digested that material, and made sense of it. ~~~ [1] Holmes, J. (1993) John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. London: Routledge. [1]Bretherton I (1992). "The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth". Developmental Psychology 28: 759. [2] Gomez, L. (1997) An Introduction to Object Relations. London: Free Association Books. Chapter 7. [3]Gullestad, S.E. (2001) Attachment theory and psychoanalysis: controversial issues. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 24, 3-16. [4]Bowlby, J. (1988/2005) A Secure Base. London: Routledge Classics. [5]Ainsworth M.D. (1969) "Object relations, dependency, and attachment: a theoretical review of the infant-mother relationship". Child Development, 40 (4): 969-1025 [6]Bowlby J (1958). The nature of the child's tie to his mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 39 (5): 350-73. [7]Ainsworth M (1967). Infancy in Uganda: Infant Care and the Growth of Love. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. [8] Mahler, M.S., Pine, F. and Bergman, A. (1975/1987) The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and individuation. London: Maresfield Library. [9]Bowlby, J. (1988/2005) A Secure Base: clinical applications of attachment theory. London: Routledge Classics. [10]Wallin, D. (2007) Attachment in Psychotherapy. New York: The Guildford Press. [11]Fonagy, P., Gergeley, G., Jurist, E.J., and Target, M.I. (2002) Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self. New York: Other Press. [12]Schore, A. N. (2003) Affect regulation and the repair of the self. New York: Norton. [13] Hofstadter, D. (2007) I am a Strange Loop. New York: Basic Books. [14]Holmes, J. (1995) Something there is that doesn't love a wall. John Bowlby, attachment theory, and psychoanalysis. In: Goldberg, S. et al (eds) Attachment Theory: Social, Developmental and Clinical Perspectives. London: The Analytic Press. (Pages 19-43). [15] Byrne, J.W. (2010) Therapy after Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: the birth of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). Hebden Bridge: The Institute for CENT. [16]Bowlby, J. (1988/2005) A Secure Base. London: Routledge Classics. ~~~ Links: |
Neither Transactional Analysis (TA) nor Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) theorists or counsellors pay much attention
to the concept of "attachment" - or how securely or insecurelya child feels in its relationships
with its main carers. 
If you had an insecure relationship with your mother (and/or father) then you can change that. But it will take a substantial
amount of effort on your part. However, that effort is well worth it. I speak from personal experience.
I had a very bad relationship with my own mother (and father) and had to do a lot of therapy, over many years, to re-wire
my brain for happy, productive, enjoyable relationships. For an insight into that work, please see my CENT paper on
this subject:
What is attachment theory? How does it relate to post-Freudian or neo-Freudian approaches to counselling and psychotherapy?
And how are these ideas used in CENT?
Paradoxically, 
Whereas Sigmund (and later Anna) Freud emphasized the sexual tensions between parent and children, during the child's biologized
stages of development, as the seat of neurosis, some post-Freudians, such as Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott,
and others, went back to the relationship between mother and child in the early months of life to
look for the seat of emotional mal-adaptations
This development of Attachment theory has had a profound effect on the shape of CENT counselling practices. In particular,
I place more emphasis on my emotional attachment to the client, and not just on the quality of my thinking and philosophical
teachings, which make my work quite different from REBT/CBT counselling approaches. A ‘good enough' CENT counsellor
will seek to provide a ‘secure base' for his/her clients; to treat them with concern, care and sensitivity; and to model
mindfulness, body awareness, and emotional intelligence for the client to copy, or internalize. In short, a ‘good
enough' CENT counsellor should be prepared to extend ‘maternal love' to their clients, as a matter of course.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote this: If I had to summarize the seven most useful ideas that I have got from the literature
Last week I quoted a couple of little extracts from Chapter 7 of David Wallin's book
Returning to the section of Chapter 7 of Dr David Wallin's book on Attachment in Psychotherapy
Mothers and their babies influence each other. Their responses to each other are reciprocal and either complementary
or clashing. How does this relate to research on the relationship between counsellors and their clients? A similar
pattern seems to be found here, of ‘mutual reciprocal influence' between clients and psychotherapists - according to
David Wallin's learning from the researches of Mitchell (1995)
That brings me to a major piece of work I have in store at the moment, which cannot be completed quickly or easily.
It concerns the significance of non-verbal communication in attachment-informed counselling and therapy. Should the
focus of counselling and therapy be mainly, or exclusively, on NVC; or should it just be one part of the process?
Holmes (1993) suggests that in Attachment theory, the concept of narrative is central, and if a person has conscious access
to a storied version of their life's experiences, then they are likely to feel secure in their relationships, in the parental
home, and in later relationships
Holmes (1993) considers that Attachment Theory should not become another, new form of psychotherapy. There are already
more than 400 systems in use. Instead, Holmes argues that there are aspects of Attachment Theory that fit in with some
preexisting elements of most systems of counselling and therapy. These include: "a relationship with
the therapist, which provides hope or ‘remoralization' - in Bowlbian terms a secure base from which to start to explore
the problem; a coherent explanation for the (client's) difficulties - a shared narrative; and a
method for overcoming them". Holmes believes the overall goal of therapy is promoting
emotional autonomy: " - the capacity to form relationships in which one feels both close and free, corresponding
with Attachment Theory's picture of a secure base facilitating exploration". (Page 151).
At the moment, I cannot imagine giving up my process of teaching clients how to ‘reframe' their problems, and how to
think about them using well-tested philosophical insights; of teaching assertiveness skills; or the importance of diet, exercise
and self-talk; or helping them to dig up any unprocessed incidents from their past which have been buried in the ‘shadow
side' (to use Jung's concept of repressed, rejected bits of ourselves and our experience), and allowing the client to complete
their experience of those incidents and experiences. I cannot imagine giving up teaching various models to my clients
- models which allow them to think more clearly about their problems, and to rewrite their unhelpful stories and scripts.