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

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. Attachment and connection based traits

The attachment based traits of the healthy adult are (drawing from Brown & Elliott 2016 and Allan Schore):

• Desire to protect others and expectation that loved ones protect self
• Ability to attune to others and the expectation of attunement from others
• Ability to physically comfort and soothe and expectation to receive the same
• Support of explorations of loved ones and expectation of support from them
• Getting and giving guidance
• Physical and mental entrainment/synchronization with loved ones which creates a sense of belonging
• Ability to trust
• Generosity

So how can you strengthen the Healthy Adult Mode?

To be fair, there are likely many ways.

However, the means that I know of to do this work is through guided visualization meditations in which you embody these qualities.

If you want to get a sense for the Healthy Adult Mode, you can try this 14 minute meditation on Building Up the Healthy Adult Mode.

Or if you want to dive deep, you can check out this course on developing the Healthy Adult Mode.

Building the Healthy Self: Self Definition, Self Agency, Self Esteem, and the Ability to Show Up for Others

In this course we will cultivate the "Healthy Adult". This implies 1) developing the capacity to be a secure attachment figure for others, 2) to develop better self definition, 3) self agency, and 4) self esteem.
This course is for those who have already worked through the basic attachment repair courses or who come to this work already secure attachment established. Said differently, this course facilitates positive development beyond basic secure attachment.

In this course we will cultivate the "Healthy Adult". This implies 1) developing the capacity to be a secure attachment figure for others, 2) to develop better self definition, 3) self agency, and 4) self esteem.
This course is for those who have already worked through the basic attachment repair courses or who come to this work already secure attachment established. Said differently, this course facilitates positive development beyond basic secure attachment.

April 10th, 2023

$179

Self-Paced Course

Useful for:
• Metacognition
• Dating Issues
• Confidence & Exploration
• Self Definition / Agency / Esteem