Cedric Reeves – Attachment Repair

I Am Triggered – What Can I Do?

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:March 1, 2022
Reading time:4 mins read
Healing Modality:
Attachment Theoryi

When practising meditation with the goal of working on attachment, you may occasionally find yourself triggered by strong emotional experiences or memories. You might have anxious symptoms such as a racing heart or shortness of breath, or you might simply have a feeling of being overwhelmed. What to do when triggered after meditation is the same as what you can do when triggered in other circumstances, and there are always ways you can ground yourself. Here are some of our suggestions for how to return to your centre and find calm when triggered.

The 18 Schemas of Jeffrey Young’s Schema Therapy Contextualized with Attachment Theory

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:January 26, 2022
Reading time:3 mins read
Healing Modalities:
Attachment Theoryi
Schema Therapyi

Schemas are emotional beliefs/memories/predictions about self, other, and world.

In this article, we offer our definitions for the 18 early maladaptive Schemas and our view on how they relate to the Attachment Styles.

Most Schemas will be categorized in terms of the Dismissing/Preoccupied dichotomy.

Note that Disorganized attachment implies both Dismissing and Preoccupied components. For that reason, all of the schemas can be found in Disorganized attachment. However, the Mistrust/Abuse schema stands out as a defining schema of Disorganized Attachment.

How to Change Negative Beliefs with Meditation (Schema Repatterning Meditation)

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:December 21, 2021
Reading time:3 mins read
Healing Modality:
Schema Therapyi

Here we present a step by step guide on how to meditate to change negative beliefs about self and world (schemas) and related symptoms (modes). The system is called Schema Repatterning Meditation.

Identify what I want to work on.
1. Schema: a negative emotional belief about self, other, and world (if you know it you can work on it directly).
2. Mode: a part with a behavioral component that tends to cause you suffering (symptom) (may be easier to see).

Metacognition and Mentalization Skills

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:November 19, 2021
Reading time:3 mins read
Healing Modality:
Mentalizationi

Do you want to improve your ability to regulate your emotions so you aren’t blown around by the changing winds of mood? You can start by memorizing the following six skills for metacognition.

Identification is the ability to recognize what is happening in one’s inner experience, and greatly overlaps with mindfulness. Someone with weak identification skills will have trouble knowing what emotions they’re feeling and is more likely to be overwhelmed by them as a result.

Agency as an Important Issue around Dissociation, Depersonalization, and Derealization

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:October 6, 2021
Reading time:3 mins read

This article is about agency as it relates to dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization.

Agency = I can go after the things that I want, and have the impacts I desire on the world and others.

For the appreciation of ‘meditation-derived experiences of non-agency’ to be non-threatening it’s best that there first be a developed sense of agency in the mundane sense, paradoxically.

I view mundane mental health as hinging, appreciably, on a sense of agency and or the belief in one’s sense of agency.

Summary of Coherence Therapy

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:September 9, 2021
Reading time:3 mins read
Healing Modality:
Coherence Therapyi

Coherence Therapy is a unified set of methods and concepts for mental healing that foster profound change with a high level of consistency.

“In short, we had stopped treating the symptom like the work of a demon whom we were trying to drive out of the client’s life. We had focused instead solely on learning from the client why their depression, panic attacks, stormy relationships or obsessions were somehow necessary — what unconscious benefit these seemingly nefarious symptoms served.

The Schema Modes as They Relate to Attachment Styles

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:August 16, 2021
Reading time:7 mins read
Healing Modalities:
Attachment Theoryi
Schema Therapyi

Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions. In this, I am drawing from Jeffrey Young’s work on Schema Therapy, and Attachment Theory more generally.

I believe that the Attachment styles can be viewed as clusters of schemas and modes; schemas being beliefs about self and world, and the necessary behaviors (modes) that result from those beliefs. The modes represent the coherent behavioral manifestations of the schemas.

Insecure Attachment is associated with impaired emotional self-regulation. The Coping Modes are those emotional regulation strategies that avoid “an even greater suffering”, as Bruce Ecker says.

Schemas as They Relate to Attachment Styles

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:July 23, 2021
Reading time:1 mins read
Healing Modalities:
Attachment Theoryi
Schema Therapyi

This list is based on my perspective as to how Jeffrey Young’s ‘Early Maladaptive Schemas’ relate to Insecure Attachment. More info on the 18 schemas here: http://www.schematherapy.com/id73.htm

General Insecurity

11 – Insufficient Self Control / Self Discipline

Dismissing Attachment

3 – Emotional Deprivation (central)
4 – Defectiveness / Shame (central)
5 – Social Isolation / Alienation

12 – Subjugation
13 – Self Sacrifice
14 – Approval Seeking / Recognition Seeking
10 – Entitlement / Grandiosity
17 – Unrelenting Standards / Hypercriticalness
18 – Punitiveness

Preoccupied Attachment

1 – Abandonment / Instability (central)
3 – Emotional Deprivation
6 – Dependence / Incompetence
7 – Vulnerability to Harm or Illness
8 – Enmeshment / Undeveloped Self
9 – Failure to Achieve
15 – Negativity / Pessimism

Disorganized Attachment

1 – Abandonment / Instability
2 – Mistrust / Abuse (central) (additionally: fear and manipulation)
3 – Emotional Deprivation
4 – Defectiveness / Shame
5 – Social Isolation / Alienation
6 – Dependence / Incompetence
7 – Vulnerability to Harm or Illness
8 – Enmeshment / Undeveloped Self
9 – Failure to Achieve
10 – Entitlement / Grandiosity
12 – Subjugation
13 – Self Sacrifice
14 – Approval Seeking / Recognition Seeking
15 – Negativity / Pessimism
17 – Unrelenting Standards / Hypercriticalness
18 – Punitiveness

You can also read about how the attachment styles relate to schema modes, the behaviors that necessarily result from the schemas above.

How to Care for Yourself After a Retreat and How to Make it Count

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:July 15, 2021
Reading time:4 mins read
Healing Modality:
Buddhist Practicesi

Going on retreat can be deeply impactful. It is time spent outside the ordinary rhythms of life and often also outside ordinary states of mind. Coming back after a retreat can therefore be a challenging time, although one that’s full of opportunity. Below are some suggestions on how best to care for yourself post-retreat, while respecting the experience you’ve just had.

First off, don’t expect loved ones to understand. You may feel you’ve made important realizations or changed in significant ways that need to be communicated right away.

Can You Change Your Attachment Style and if so How?

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:June 27, 2021
Reading time:5 mins read
Healing Modality:
Attachment Theoryi

Can you change your attachment style? Yes, you can. But, there are many important considerations to keep in mind.

Attachment conditioning dictates much of how we behave in relationships, view ourselves, how well we explore our world, and how good we are at emotional self regulation (Brown et al., 2016). This conditioning is largely determined very early on between the ages of six and twenty-four months (and to a lesser degree up to three years). The conditioning that takes place at this time occurs at the procedural or implicit level, which is pre-verbal.

How to Work through the Schemas – Step by Step

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:May 5, 2021
Reading time:1 mins read
Healing Modality:
Schema Therapyi

Here is a brief guide on how to work through the Schemas.

Identify which Schemas you have. A reliable way to get insight on this is to take the Schema Inventory.
Pick the particular Schema that you want to work on.
Activate the Schema and come into the mental state by bringing up auditory thoughts, image thoughts and body sensations and emotions that are associated with the Schema.

Biology, Attachment, and Love

Post author:Cedric Reeves
Post published:February 19, 2021
Reading time:2 mins read
Healing Modality:
Attachment Theoryi

I watched “My Octopus Teacher” last night. It was so moving. It made me think about the relationship between biology, attachment, and love.

John Bowlby theorized that humans, like other primates and mammals, seek out proximity to the mother for evolutionary reasons, namely to seek safety. This makes perfect sense. You can build a theory of love, connection, and affection solely on the basis of the evolutionary benefits of proximity explained by Attachment Theory.

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