• Filter by Healing Modalities

Brief Ideal Parent Figure Protocol Meditation for Disorganized Attachment

  • Post author:
  • Post published:August 8, 2023
  • Reading time:2 mins read

“Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair” by Daniel Brown et al., & Ideal Parent Figure Protocol for a Disorganized Adult Client

Guided visualization meditation treatment

The guided visualization process developed by Brown et al. to help heal the insecure “Internal Working Model of Attachment” (IWMA) is the “Ideal Parent Figure Protocol” (IPF) (2016). The Ideal Parents (IPF’s) shouldn’t be based on your actual parents, rather someone who you know who seem perfect to you (a loving movie star or a saint etc) (Brown, et al, 2016).

Continue ReadingBrief Ideal Parent Figure Protocol Meditation for Disorganized Attachment

What Are the Factors that Lead to Secure Attachment?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:January 1, 2023
  • Reading time:1 mins read

Secure Attachment is caused by good enough parenting in terms of getting the following from our caregivers during the critical period of attachment (first three years of life). The first five in the list draw from Dan Brown & David Elliott’s 2016 book “Attachment Disturbances in Adults”:

  • safety and protection
  • attunement, feeling seen and known
  • soothing, physical affection
  • expressed delight
  • support for explorations
  • unconditional/reliable love (not having to worry that love is conditional)
  • guidance and boundary setting
  • problem solving within the zone of proximal development
  • sense of belonging (largely a result of entrainment and synchronization of mental and physical states)

Of these safety and protection is most important. 

Continue ReadingWhat Are the Factors that Lead to Secure Attachment?

What Is Physical and Mental Entrainment/Synchronisation?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 30, 2022
  • Reading time:1 mins read

The entrainment and synchronization of mental and physical states is the felt sense that you experience similar states as the attachment figure. It is one of the nine factors that brings about Secure Attachment.

It plays an important part in bonding process and helps people emotionally coregulate. This is especially important as it helps with emotional regulation and the sense of belonging.

The sense of belonging helps militate against feeling socially isolated and alienated which is a common schema in people with Insecure Attachment.

Continue ReadingWhat Is Physical and Mental Entrainment/Synchronisation?

Schema Mode Diagrams of the Coping Styles

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 29, 2022
  • Reading time:1 mins read

This is Jessica O’Garr’s Schema Mode Process Diagram.  It’s a visual for helping to understand Schema Therapy as a whole and the coping modes particularly. I modified it a bit.

Below is a similar Schema Mode Model which Amir Askari and I collaborated on.  The primary addition to this graphic is Askari’s three new coping styles and subordinate coping modes. Amir introduces these new coping styles in his 2021 book: New Concepts of Schema Therapy: (The 6 Coping Styles).

Continue ReadingSchema Mode Diagrams of the Coping Styles

How Do Metacognition and Attachment Security Interrelate?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 29, 2022
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Metacognition (mentalization, reflective function) refers to the ability to think about and make sense of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It is an important aspect of mental health and wellbeing, as it allows individuals to self regulate their emotions and behaviors, and to make meaning of their experiences.

Attachment security, on the other hand, refers to the ability to form and maintain close, supportive relationships with others. It is often thought to be influenced by early experiences with caregivers.

Continue ReadingHow Do Metacognition and Attachment Security Interrelate?

How Do Mindfulness and Attachment Repair Interrelate?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 29, 2022
  • Reading time:4 mins read

How do Insecure Attachment and mindfulness interrelate?

To have Insecure Attachment means that we fall into ‘fixed reactive habit patterns’.  We enact an old emotional memory/prediction in a way that is not responsive to the present moment.  This is in contradistinction to having the capacity to ‘respond’ adaptively based on how things currently are.  This is a central feature of Insecure Attachment. One benefit of mindfulness is that we have a bit more consciousness and lead time to consider the situation that we are in and respond instead of just reacting.
Continue ReadingHow Do Mindfulness and Attachment Repair Interrelate?

The Imago Technique: Training Communications Skills for Successful Relationships

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 28, 2022
  • Reading time:3 mins read

What is the Imago technique?

Imago is a form of couples therapy developed by Harville Hendrix, a clinical pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist. It is based on the idea that we are attracted to and choose partners who have both positive and negative qualities that are similar to those of our primary caregivers, and that conflicts in our relationships can be seen as opportunities for growth and healing.

The Imago therapy process involves a series of structured exercises and conversations designed to help couples better understand and communicate with each other, resolve conflicts, and deepen their connection and intimacy.

Continue ReadingThe Imago Technique: Training Communications Skills for Successful Relationships

What’s a Disturbed Sense of Self? How Do I Know if I Have One?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:December 7, 2022
  • Reading time:2 mins read
  • Healing Modality:

Client: Can you describe what disturbances in sense of self might look or feel like? For some reason this resonates with me and I believe it may be what I experienced from a very young age.

Cedric: Sure, first off, early attachment experiences lay the developmental basis for 1. our most core internal map of close relationships, 2. our ability to emotionally self regulate, 3. our ability to explore, and 4. our self of self.

Disturbances in the sense of self can be multifaceted, for example:

  • The sense that I don’t know what I want
  • I have no opinions or feel like I only have a very tentative grasp on my opinions and desires
  • What I want doesn’t matter
  • I lack agency and control over my life
  • I don’t feel good about myself (poor self esteem)
  • I don’t feel like I can separate myself from others even when that is the right thing to do (enmeshment)
  • I can’t make my own decisions

Also dissociation is a disturbance of the sense of self as there are parts of the self that aren’t communicating with each other.

Continue ReadingWhat’s a Disturbed Sense of Self? How Do I Know if I Have One?

It Is a Healthy Self that Can Be in a Secure Relationship: The Healthy Adult Mode and How to Strengthen it with Guided Visualization Meditation

  • Post author:
  • Post published:November 29, 2022
  • Reading time:2 mins read
  • Healing Modalities:

One of the primary goals of healing work is to develop the Healthy Adult.

Specifically, developing the Healthy Adult is an important piece of developing Earned Secure Attachment.

The Healthy Adult is confident, balanced, in touch with their emotions, and able to relate well with others. Everyone has a Healthy Adult to varying degrees of development.

The Healthy Adult can be understood as having two major groupings of positive traits:

1. Strength based traits

The strength based traits are comprised of (drawing from Jeffrey Young’s ‘Healthy Adult Mode’, Dan Brown’s ‘Best Self’, and The Third School of Cognitive Therapy’s metacognitive skills):

  • Healthy self definition (knowing who you are and what you are about)
  • Assertiveness
  • A well developed sense of agency (internal locus of control)
  • Well developed ability to explore
  • Healthy self esteem
  • Metacognitive skills
  • Stress tolerance and emotional self-regulation skills

2.

Continue ReadingIt Is a Healthy Self that Can Be in a Secure Relationship: The Healthy Adult Mode and How to Strengthen it with Guided Visualization Meditation

How Do I Embody Secure Attachment?

  • Post author:
  • Post published:November 29, 2022
  • Reading time:2 mins read
  • Healing Modalities:

Can you expect to have relationships with someone who has Secure Attachment when you don’t?

Maybe or maybe not. But surely it’s easier to find a secure partner and even secure friends when you yourself have Secure Attachment.

But then how do you develop Earned Secure Attachment if you don’t have it?

Well first off let’s map out what secure attachment looks like in adults.

Then we’ll discuss how you get it.

Continue ReadingHow Do I Embody Secure Attachment?

Four Meditations for Experiencing the Mind States of Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied and Disorganized Attachment

  • Post author:
  • Post published:November 1, 2022
  • Reading time:1 mins read
  • Healing Modality:

These are guided meditations that guide you through the experience of the four major attachment styles as a mind state. These can be a bit triggering, but very enlightening.

https://attachmentrepair.com/meditation/dismissing-vs-secure-mind-state/

https://attachmentrepair.com/meditation/experiencing-the-dismissing-mind-state/

https://attachmentrepair.com/meditation/experiencing-the-disorganized-mindstate/

https://attachmentrepair.com/meditation/experiencing-the-preoccupied-mind-state/

Continue ReadingFour Meditations for Experiencing the Mind States of Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied and Disorganized Attachment