{"title":"Ameliorative mechanisms of psychodynamic psychotherapy in the treatment of developmental trauma","authors":"Benjamin Greenberg","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.155","url":null,"abstract":"Towards ethically confronting the challenging and complex symptomology of developmental trauma this article proposes that psychodynamic therapy's inclusion of relational process contextual and attachment level considerations apply directly to the complexbio psycho social and systemic issues arising from such a dversity Acknowledging the problematic legacy of invalidating the very real impact of racial gender and socio economic disenfranchisement it is proposed that when accounting for these disparities psychodynamic therapy is powerfully suited to address the deeply embedded unspeakable aspects of traumatic experience including fragmented sense representations stored deep within somatic emotional memory Several essential components of this approach are explored along with a case summary detailing aspects of an integrated neurophysiological conceptualisation of developmental trauma These include linguistic and relational em phases correlating with the very hemispheric structure of our brain towards supporting reconfiguration of injured neurological networks corresponding with emotion regula tion executive function identity cohesion and capacity for cultivating mutually fulfilling relationships","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"573 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139204339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shame containment theory—a new approach to shame","authors":"Lisa Etherson","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.141","url":null,"abstract":"Shame is often overlooked in therapy in favour of anxiety and guilt (Lansky & Morrison, 1998; Solomon, 2021). Indeed, there is little emphasis on shame within psycho- therapy training and a noticeable lack of recognition to its relationship with attachment (Solomon, 2021). And yet, shame is described as an attachment emotion by some shame theorists (Lewis, 1971; Schore, 1991). Shame is a complex emotion that is often hidden, making it difficult to work with and can leave clients feeling frustrated that they are stuck in the same relational patterns. Ultimately, unacknowledged shame in the therapy room and the understanding of how shame influences self-perception can be detrimental to thera- peutic outcome. This article introduces a new theory of shame: shame containment theory (SCT). The premise being that shame is vital to self-protection and attachment. By exploring the history of shame in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and presenting current models of shame, this article will demonstrate how SCT is a needed addition to contemporary shame theory, with particular relevance to attachment theory. Using a brief case study, this article will demonstrate how SCT relates to presentations in the therapy room. This lens on shame as an attachment emotion offers therapists a new model with which to understand and work with shame.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139197758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On mourning and not mourning other-than-human loss","authors":"Maggie Turp","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.241","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the escalating climate and ecological crisis and its impact on other-than-human life. It falls into four sections: other-than-human attachment and loss, social and political impediments to mourning, the activation of defences in the face of existential threat, and enlivening the other-than-human.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"17 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139206406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The multi-layers of attachment","authors":"Aysha Begum","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"198 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139204745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interpretation viewed through the lens of attachment informed couple psychotherapy","authors":"Christopher Clulow","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.173","url":null,"abstract":"Historically, the mutative power of psychoanalysis has been attributed to interpret- ing transference. The site of transformational change has been located in the patient–analyst relationship; the medium for bringing it about has been language: psychoanalysis as the \"talking cure\". There is much wrong with this formulation, not least for therapists whose \"patient\" is the adult couple— itself constituting a powerful site for past conflicts to find a home. Moreover, psychoanalysts of all persuasions accept that fundamental assumptions about relationships are formed at an unconscious level before experience can be symbolised through language. Attachment theory has laid the foundations for theoretical and therapeutic developments that highlight the mutative potential of relationships in which both parties are involved in the mutual process of creating something new. This transformational capacity is not the preserve of any one therapeutic approach, but belongs in the realm of what have been described as the \"non-specific\" factors that have accounted for change identified in many psychotherapy outcome studies. This article will consider the \"mood music\" of psychotherapy, suggesting that interpretation can be viewed as an act of love, stemming from, as much as resulting in, change.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"44 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139206071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A kind of love: resources and limits of attachment","authors":"Adriano Bugliani","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.196","url":null,"abstract":"All the empirical literature on what is effective in psychotherapy, not just psycho- analytic therapy, ends up emphasising relationship and personality. And when you talk about relationship or about the working alliance, you're talking about the two parties making an attachment to each other, which is just a fancy word for love. I will try to show how this applies to a very difficult case.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"27 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139206186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enculturation, acculturation, positionality, and power: new lenses to better understand the formation of self- and group-agency— a conversation starter","authors":"Simon Partridge","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.185","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on my experience of being born into the British upper-class and applying the insights of attachment theory, my \"boarding school syndrome: reconsidered in social context and through the lens of attachment theory\" (Partridge, 2021), offered a critique of the existing diagnostic \"boarding school syndrome\" (BSS) as developed by Schaverien (2011, 2015), and Duffell and Basset (2016). It sought to step beyond this framework where the therapist assumes that the emotional disability which afflicts the upper-class is simply the result of the \"abandonment shock\" of being sent off to board followed by possible abuse within the extra-familial institution. The paper mentioned the processes of \"enculturation\", \"acculturation\", and the English/British upper-social-class ethos normalised in the \"stiff upper lip\", but it did not spell them out. It proposed, draw- ing specifically on psychotherapist Anne Power's (2013) attachment-oriented work with boarders, that the likely psyche–soma effects from a clinical standpoint could not be fully appreciated without taking the wider, upper-class social environment into account. Although not specifically identified in the paper, this is what I now intend to call the application of \"positionality\"1— applied to practitioner and survivor. This term is borrowed from social anthropology and philosophy, but I argue it will be essential in psychotherapeutics if practitioners and survivors are to engage with the complex intersectional and power issues that present-day society struggles with (Stevenson, 2020). This paper applies these lenses mainly to the UK upper class and its vicissitudes, but also to inter-class transactions more generally.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139208736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding compulsive sexual behaviours through the lens of attachment","authors":"Silva Neves","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n2.2023.226","url":null,"abstract":"Compulsive sexual behaviours are misunderstood creating a lot of debates and arguments amongst psychotherapists on how to best conceptualise these presentations and how to treat them. The debate on whether the best conceptualisation is the one of \"sex addiction\" or a sexological-informed one is ongoing. The nomenclature that we assign to this clinical presentation is important because it will guide the clinician in their choice of treatment. A \"sex addiction\" diagnosis will inform a behavioural and abstinence-based therapy, whereas a sexological approach may offer more possibilities to understand the erotic and relational processes of clients for which attachment theories are useful for a positive long-term treatment outcome.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"120 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139201564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How attachment transformed my palliative practice: discovering the palliative paradox","authors":"Christiaan Rhodius","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n1.2023.58","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n1.2023.58","url":null,"abstract":"Attachment theory described by John Bowlby greatly influenced the perception of relationships. The theory proposes a framework for thinking about relationships—the propensity of mankind to seek closeness to particular others. Attachment behaviour and the longing for a secure base are focal points within the concept of attachment. Both are thought to play a role from cradle to grave. In palliative care (with approaching death as the ultimate threat to connection) dynamics in relationships will inevitably change. This article introduces the concept of “the palliative paradox”, a perspective on dynamics within the relational realm. It provides a framework for clinical thinking and points to possible interventions. It can also be used as a means of psycho-education for patients and family. As such “the palliative paradox” can provide insight for clinicians, patients, and family alike. This enables all involved into becoming and being a secure base for each other. The presence of a secure base amidst the process of separation makes it possible to die connected. Thereby increasing the quality of life, the focal point of palliative care.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116689422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Our time is up”: a patient’s perspective on psychotherapist retirement","authors":"Carol Morrison Straforini","doi":"10.33212/att.v17n1.2023.43","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33212/att.v17n1.2023.43","url":null,"abstract":"Organic terminations in a “good-enough” treatment at their best end with feelings of warmth, pride, sadness, and a letting go. Psychotherapist retirement, however, is a unilateral ending imposed upon patients, sometimes causing not only feelings of loss and hurt, but bringing about damage, breaching the age-old mandate of the Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm”. Yet, humans can avoid ageing only by early death. They retire, sometimes forced by necessities, sometimes beckoned by a readiness for a final life chapter filled in ways that do not include professional work. Some hurts, even harm, may be unavoidable. Despite a growing literature on the topic of psychotherapist retirement, the first-hand perspective of the retired-upon patient is as yet without a public voice. A retired psycho-dynamic psychotherapist myself, in this article I share my experience as a patient who lost a much-loved therapist to retirement. I write with a patient’s heart informed by a practitioner’s eyes, ending with suggestions for both members of the therapeutic dyad and also for the professional community.","PeriodicalId":296880,"journal":{"name":"Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125979527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}