In fact, when we talk about attachment therapy We refer to a series of intervention models based on the . This theory has increasingly more impact in the therapeutic context.
In the mid-20th century, studies by Bowlby and Ainsworth identified different types of attachment related to the bond between the main caregiver and the child and its influence on adult life.
Learned attachment styles generate in the person ways of emotional regulation in the face of stressful events that become adaptation strategies.
What attachment theory contributes to therapy
This theory offers a better understanding of psychopathological evolution and provides more sincere therapeutic relationships. It allows you to better understand the patient’s history and forge a safer and more functional therapeutic framework.
It is based on the fact that, depending on the childhood emotional environment experienced and the relationships established with parents or caregivers, the person is better or worse prepared for the emotional management of their life events.
How attachment therapy is proposed
Attachment therapy attempts to foster supportive environments during the therapist-patient relationship. Secure attachment is based on emotional receptivity, empathy and unconditional support. It results in better emotional management, better self-esteem, greater autonomy, healthier interpersonal relationships, etc.
In this way, the patient accesses a more functional model than the one he had integrated into his daily life, and discovers new ways of locating himself in the world and in his own life that allow him to be more flexible in his responses to stress. Ultimately, he finds a more adaptive model that he did not experience, or with which he had very little relationship, during his childhood.
The attachment therapy bases its work on:
- The bonding experiences integrated into the personality.
- The patient’s ability to regulate emotions.
- Motivations at a conscious and unconscious level.
- The therapeutic alliance (as a secure base).
Some examples of attachment therapies
Parental Safety Circle
Developed by Hoffman, Cooper and Powell, it is a program to guide parents who want to establish a secure attachment relationship with their children. In a type of preventive intervention, whose main objective is for the child to feel safe in the relationship, with clear emotional references that address her physical and emotional needs.
The figure of protection is what allows the GIVE-BE-PROTECT circle to be completed.
Therapy based on mentalization
For Fonagy and Bateman, the concept of mentalization is the ability of people to interpret their own feelings and behaviors and those of their peers. At the center of the intervention is the mother’s ability to think of her child as a person with her own feelings, needs and desires. It is clearly based on attachment theory and emotional regulation.
In this therapy model the objective is for the person to become aware of those automatisms that have marked their emotional relationships and that have defined their way of being in the world, feeling it and thinking about it. And also of those processes that have been deficient in the construction of his emotional universe.
It is a very suitable therapy for personality disorders, traumas and maladaptive patterns of emotional regulation.
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