[ultramar]

Mindswing's post with the link to Joseph Burgo (who I've read before and really like) sent me back to do some re-reading.

Since there's been a good deal of posting about attachment in therapy lately, I thought it might be useful to post an excerpt of one of his posts:

My thesis is simple: if failures in early attachment damage the brain as it develops, the way to repair that damage (to the extent possible) is through another “attachment” relationship that somewhat resembles but also differs in major ways from that early bond: the psychotherapy relationship. I suppose I mean that in therapy, something like a “corrective emotional experience” occurs, as long as we don’t idealize that experience and we understand that therapy doesn’t fully correct for all those early emotional failures. The corrective emotional experience in therapy is not a replacement for a mother who truly loved and cared for you. It’s the closest to such an experience that many people ever get but it’s a distant “second best.”

My question to you guys is regarding the part I bolded: can that fine line between a 'corrective experience' and a more literal 're-parenting' be crossed, and if so, how and why? What are the consequences, if any?

When and how can a kind of re-parenting in therapy go awry where the therapist and/or client end up distorting what can be a corrective, healing experience, into a full-blown (and more literal than symbolic) baby/child-parent kind of relationship?

How can the parent-child transference and countertransference remain more symbolic than literal, so that that 'child' can have the space and encouragement to grow into maturity, where the therapist doesn't get stuck in the parent role and the client doesn't get stuck in the child role?

Thanks!

[stopdog]

Here is something from psychology today on attachment:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...ing-attachment

I read this guy's book - it was interesting but I thought he was pretty patronizing. I have tried (but stopped) reading Burgo. I find Burgo insufferable, but I know a lot of people do not mind him.

[Perna]

I don't think you can be "re-parented". If you develop a quirk in your life you think is from an early, bad experience (for example, my mother died when I was 3, was sick all my life, from 2 years before I was born; conceivably (no pun intended :-) I could have had things go wrong in the womb because she was ill then) it's a quirk! If a bone is not set right it might heal crooked and if it is too late/not possible to rebreak the bone and set it right, you deal with the crooked bone. But HOW you deal with the crooked bone is what therapy and later life is about.

You can keep bemoaning that your bone is crooked and it hurts to walk so you don't walk; you can "blame" not walking on your father because he broke your bone (my niece was a baby and being held by her father when he fell and her leg got caught between his and broke but they did not know it for a few days because she was so young, didn't complain, was just learning to stand/walk, etc. and things were not that different after the break; they finally noticed she was no longer trying to pull herself up in the crib, etc.) or your mother because she didn't stop your brother from hitting you over the head with a hammer (my cousin almost beaned one of my brothers) and now you are permanently brain damaged, etc. or you can be determined to do what "they" say cannot be done or you can just incorporate that part of you into your lifestyle "naturally" for you; there's all sorts of things that can be done and they can be done at all sorts of times/when we want.

I retreated into a fantasy world when I was around 12 and did not fully emerge until my mid-30's. I did not get "good" therapy until my 40's. As I started therapy and started to get better, I started to gain weight; I once joked to my therapist that therapy had caused me to gain weight -- as I came out of myself and being an onion, wound around my inner self, I became a tank instead so I could go out into the world and still feel protected, could interact "out there" safely. Who knows? It could happen What's best? Depends on the person. People believe what they want to believe, seek and find what they want to seek and find. I had a great many "corrective" or new/helpful experiences relating to my therapist. I don't think they had much to do with my parenting, my parenting wasn't like that and could not have been like that and if it had been, I'd be someone else than who I am and I like who I am.

My therapist is very into attachment and corrective emotional experiences. I have DID so there are many young child alters who t has been very nurturing towards. However, the things she does with the inside kids, while nurtuing,protective, and helpful, have also helped them learn to be more independent, strong, and emotionally healthy. I suppose it would be easy to cross the line into letting ourselves become overly dependent on her, into reparenting and whatnot, but we dont have that desire to be reparented and dont see her as a mother figure, and also dont want to be needy and enjoy being independent and strong. I suppose that if the client and therapist did not have good personal boundaries then it would be possible to cross appropriate lines.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Here is something from psychology today on attachment:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...ing-attachment

I read this guy's book - it was interesting but I thought he was pretty patronizing. I have tried (but stopped) reading Burgo. I find Burgo insufferable, but I know a lot of people do not mind him.

The psych today link seems broken now. It worked earlier. The blogger is Rob Muller and the blog is called talking about trauma.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...g-about-trauma


Edit- the whole attachment blog entry is now gone. Sorry. It really was there earlier.

[Anne2.0]

Maybe this is a hijack of your thread, but I think attachment in psychotherapy is an issue for more than just people who are being reparented or who are seeking corrective emotional experiences.

I think at this point in my therapy, with my third T, the attachment I have to him serves to help me drop my defenses/take off my mask and trust him. This trust, in turn, allows me to get to the stuff I need to resolve.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by ultramar

The corrective emotional experience in therapy is not a replacement for a mother who truly loved and cared for you. It’s the closest to such an experience that many people ever get but it’s a distant “second best.”

That's still what I want, and what I thought (wrongly) I had found.

[ultramar]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

Maybe this is a hijack of your thread, but I think attachment in psychotherapy is an issue for more than just people who are being reparented or who are seeking corrective emotional experiences.

I think at this point in my therapy, with my third T, the attachment I have to him serves to help me drop my defenses/take off my mask and trust him. This trust, in turn, allows me to get to the stuff I need to resolve.

I agree, and I feel the same way about my therapy

[stopdog]

The woman I see has talked about attachment once or twice (or rather said I was dismissive or avoident about it) but absolutely no talk of reparenting. The whole idea of reparenting with the woman would send me running for the hills. Not a type of therapy I would personally get involved with.

[feralkittymom]

I do believe re-parenting is possible as it is what I've experienced. But I suspect that re-parenting--or attachment relationships--can go wrong in similar ways that original parenting can go wrong.

Ts can be withholding or overly indulgent; they can be inconsistent or rigid; they can be reactive or manipulated.

But if the attachment is appropriately handled and "good enough" (in Winnicott terms), then the experience will be a formative one.

I think, as with FOO parenting, the key is that both parties recognize and appreciate the need for the attachment to be flexible so as to mature as the "child" grows up. Just as children often express resistance at different stages of the maturing process, so may clients, and those points may be the moments when the attachment comes under most stress and mistakes can be made. If those mistakes aren't corrected, then harm can be done.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

I do believe re-parenting is possible as it is what I've experienced. But I suspect that re-parenting--or attachment relationships--can go wrong in similar ways that original parenting can go wrong.

Ts can be withholding or overly indulgent; they can be inconsistent or rigid; they can be reactive or manipulative.

That is a very important insight. I think my reparenting went wrong and Madame T was not "good enough".

Thanks!

[feralkittymom]

CE, I think you're reading my post very selectively; it won't come as a surprise to you that I think the last paragraph of my post is more relevant to your situation, as I see it.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

CE, I think you're reading my post very selectively; it won't come as a surprise to you that I think the last paragraph of my post is more relevant to your situation, as I see it.

I'll go back and read it again.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

I think, as with FOO parenting, the key is that both parties recognize and appreciate the need for the attachment to be flexible so as to mature as the "child" grows up. Just as children often express resistance at different stages of the maturing process, so may clients, and those points may be the moments when the attachment comes under most stress and mistakes can be made. If those mistakes aren't corrected, then harm can be done.

To say that "mistakes were made" is only the beginning. What mistakes were made, who made them, do they accept responsibility for them, and what are they going to do to put things right?

[feralkittymom]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

To say that "mistakes were made" is only the beginning. What mistakes were made, who made them, do they accept responsibility for them, and what are they going to do to put things right?

It's not just "they"; it's "us." Relationships take two. And, sometimes, there cannot be a quantifiable accounting. But we decide to accept and go on.