AAMFT Conference - Notes……Continue - Adult Attachment: Developing Secure Attachments.

 Dismissing Attachment

Unresolved

Deep fear of relationships.    Sees relationships as dangerous where ever they can be (distant parents.  He didn't even know the names of his three children).   Angry parent, detachment, abusive. 

Intimate relationships can be dangerous for them as they see it.  Difficulty sleeping, concentrating, difficulty in sex relationships.  In more extreme cases dissociate and may not recall events or their whereabouts.

FOCUS OF THERAPY

     1.  Creating a secure base in therapy. 

     2.  Memories of early childhood are recalled and explored.

     3.   Exploration of current relationships.

     4.   The therapeutic relationship.

     5.  Mourning loss.

     6.  Loss of self.

     7.  Mindful acceptance of the limits of one's attachment.  Externalizing change.

     8.  Risking change in every day life.

     9.  Termination.

Goal of Therapy

     Gain awareness of and express feelings and needs.

     Develop greater capacity for intimacy.

Preoccupied Clients:

- to develop autonomy.

-to develop affect regulation with the capacity to express needs, wants and feeling in a regulated manner.