Attachment Theory

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

Read more about the article 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:
    Attachment Theoryi

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

Read more about the article 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:
    Attachment Theoryi
    Schema Therapyi

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