Let the Repair Begin….

“Co-created secure attachment imagery allows for the patient to experience caregivers in ways that a therapist cannot be expected to provide. For clinical, ethical, and legal reasons, therapists must maintain limits to physical contact with patients. For some patients, a therapist following these guidelines may actually reinforce an insecure Internal Working Model of a parent who was physically unavailable or rejecting. But through the use of imagery, the patient-as-child can be physically protected and cuddled and comforted by the imagined Ideal Parent Figures as much as he or she would like.”

– Dr David Elliott, co-author of the acclaimed text book, Attachment Disturbances in Adults

Latest Scientific Publication on the Ideal Parent FIgure Method

to be presented at the New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis Conference in 2022

Elliott.AttachmentRelationalHealing Download

Abstract: All treatments for adult attachment insecurity include in some form a set of principles and methods that can be termed therapist-as-good-attachment-figure. This relational context is widely and appropriately accepted as a foundation for any attachment-focused therapy. After highlighting some of the principles of this approach, this article describes a therapeutic model that includes using patient-and-therapist co-created imagery of positive attachment experience. This imagery method is intrapersonal, in that it focuses on the patient’s inner experience of mental representations of attachment relationships; it is inter- personal, in that the process calls upon the therapist to be highly attuned and responsive— as a good attachment figure—to the patient experiencing the imagery; and it is meta- interpersonal, in that the patient experiences the imagined interaction with the positive attachment relationships in the context of the therapist supporting and participating in the process. The use of imagery in this way can be a valuable contribution towards relational healing and adult earned secure attachment.

ATTACHMENT: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. 15, June 2021: pp. 36–55.

We have fully trained psychologists competent in the Ideal Parent Figure protocol. Designed by Dr. Daniel Brown and his colleagues, IPF is designed specifically to address unhealthy patterns in relationships and attachment due to developing insecure attachment styles as children (see Adult Attachment Program). Once we assess your attachment style with the Adult Attachment Interview, you may have the option of signing up for this incredibly successful treatment protocol.

We have found that when clients and patients address their insecure attachment style, they also experience a new coherence of mind, where they are able to discuss attachment themes in their life without becoming dysregulated. Due to this new clarity, new possibilities will open up to you in relationships and in your life that you never knew were there. With a skilled therapist, you will use your own imagination to design your own ideal parents, completely different than your parents of origin. Then, using these Ideal Parent Figures, your therapist will guide you on visualizations that will shape and reshape your “internal working model” of attachment. If this work interests you and you’d like to schedule an appointment, or if you’d simply like some more information on this treatment, please contact us.