Your Attachment Style in Therapy.

I wondered how much everyone's relationship with their T's is affected by their attachment styles? And i wonder if the people who have felt betrayed by their ex-T's or left devastated by the actions of a Therapist are the ones who have problems in life with attachment? Do people who have always had secure attachments in life get so affected by what their therapists do?

For me personally, i have issues affecting my life which stem from attachment issues from childhood. That definitely influenced how i related to my ex-T, i just could not trust her not to leave me and it affected the work and out relationship to the point that eventually she terminated me. It has left me bereft, it does feel like an abandonment all over again but i think all my feelings over this have more to do with my past.

If i had secure attachments as a child and had a secure attachment style as an adult, would i never have go so affected by the actions of my therapist? How would a secure person have related to a therapist, how would a secure person have dealt with the break down of the therapeutic relationship?

Any people out there who form secure attachments care to share their experience?

Thanks for this thread Asia and I will be very interested to read the replies.
I am in the same situation as you, I felt abandoned with t1 after our termination. I got too attached to her too quickly and she didn't like it. She had a whole different view on therapy and attachment was not part of the process.
I have never had a secure attachment so this is all new to me. I am trying to form a secure attachment to current t but I still worry that every session will be our last.
I always have this fear that everyone will leave and usually they do.
When I was a child my grandparents died when I was very young my brother and sister left and my parents left too(emotionally).
My friends all left when I started work much earlier than them, so yeah I have a deep routed fear. And then my partner left too for another woman so this is the main reason I am in therapy.

Another thing i think is that invariably a therapists attachment style affects how they are able to deal with attachment and how they relate to their clients. If they have unresolved attachment issues then perhaps these are the therapists who send away clients with strong transference?

Very interesting thread! I have attachment issues and also was terminated inappropriatly by my last T. I think I was having transference issues at the time (I had no idea what it was) and it may have been part of the reason he turned me away at the end.

Currently, I am waiting for the bottom to drop out with my current T. He seems to have a better grasp on transference, my attachment issues and how abandonment plays into my thinking/behavior - but it still always happens and I expect him to leave me. Maybe the expectation causes the other to leave? Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Even so, it's not something I can just stop doing it's sort of ingrained in me, at least for now.

I now see that I immediately attached to both my T's on day one. All it took was being, kind, empathetic, and understanding and all I wanted to do was sit next to them and put my head on their shoulder. Of course I expected that they would be overwhelmed by me, give up and send me off to someone else. T2 does not seem to be afraid of attachment and caused my transference to be real heavy fast. He always e-mailed me weekly checking in(very nurturing and healing) for the last four months. He encouraged me to reach out to him and I did. Now that he stopped doing that( I know I overwhelmed and disappointed him) I feel abandoned, bad about myself, depressed that it is true I am broken, and lost. I know if I emailed him he would respond but that would only be me fishing for attention and that is not right. My wounded inner child will always remain wounded and learn she can never have her needs fully met.

I guess I'm one of those people able to form secure attachments. Actually, attachment is a bit of a non-issue in my therapy. Because it does not cause problems for me, it just never comes up at all.

I am able to trust people readily and healthily (able to discern realistically the few people I need to be wary of from the vast majority who are trustworthy). If someone messes up, I am able to keep things in proportion and not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. I have good instinct for others' space and boundaries as well as my own, so I can respect the other person's boundaries as completely about them rather than an affront to me.

Attachment just doesn't come up in my therapy, and therapy stays very much about me without getting complicated and mixed up in therapist/client attachment issues.

That's my experience anyway.

Interesting questions. My husband has very severe attachment issues (actually very delusional at times which is frightening). Fortunately our T (and me also) has great patience and skill with his insecurities, but it IS very trying. I have been with my husband for 27 years now, and he still goes through periods of being hypercritical, suspicious, jealous, afraid I'm going to leave him, etc. And it does wear a person down. I'm just a lay-person without the training a T would have, but I can fully understand how being constantly doubted, criticized, clung to, and expected to fill the person up (often wavering between all of these) can wear a person down. I can see how a T without a very firm grasp of his/her own self and boundaries could easily reach the end of their tether. We would like a T to be able to deal with that, but I suspect they are not all equipped to do so.

I've stayed with my husband because of my deep personal commitment to him and our marriage. I certainly didn't enter into this relationship a) expecting in any way that my husband's attachment problems even existed much less that they would be this severe, and b) knowing how personally draining his attachment issues would be on me. But I have a personal and spiritual commitment that has kept me patiently by his side.

A therapist, I suspect, can go through a similar experience, and while they hopefully have the professional training to handle attachment problems with their clients (though I'm convinced not all of them do), they don't have the truly personal, familial connection and commitment that grants them infinite patience. They have a professional "out" called termination if they feel their ability to help has been exhausted and /or their professional and personal resources have been drained.

Attachment issues are difficult from both ends of the equation.

I guess I'm mostly in the same boat with Chris. I was quite attached to my T pretty early on, and I still feel attached to him, in the sense that I care about him, I enjoy our communication, and there's mutual respect--much like I would feel for a good friend. I never feared for a moment that he would terminate me, nor did I particularly feel any worry or dread about when therapy would end (and even though it ended somewhat unpredictably due to his ill health, and I was sad, it wasn't soul-destroying.)

I guess all of this is evidence of healthy attachment. I'm not sure really how one knows if their own form of attachment is healthy or not, nor how one can predict attachment issues based upon childhood relationships. My FOO was, I suppose, "good enough" in certain ways that promote healthy attachment, but it was also quite an abusive environment. But it was only at the most highly emotionally charged moments that I projected my childhood expectations onto my T: generally, I could recognize him as a distinct person, who was probably unlikely to be or act like my parents.

So I don't think attachment style is entirely ruled by past experiences; we can, to some extent, choose to have different expectations some of the time.

Here is a link to a quick test if anyone is interested.
Attachment Style

I do not believe people consciously choose attachment styles or to be attached at all or not attached.

Both the woman I see and the test indicate I may be a tad dismissive/avoidant. It may or may not be true, but either way I don't see it as a problem and until the woman explains how it would relate to why I chose to see a therapist, I have no reason to go along with any of her plans to get me to change it. If it is not bothering a client or related to why they sought a therapist, then it is not a problem, in my opinion.

A book written by Muller, trauma and the avoidant client - does have the guy expressing dismay that avoidant clients don't act enough like they love the therapist or therapy and how that can be so upsetting to those guys. I am pretty certain it was this guy (it was him or David Wallin - attachment in psychotherapy) who also got all wadded up when a client asked him questions at the first appointment -"it was like she was interviewing me for a job" - which of course she was and rightly so. So I take him with quite a bit of salt.

It takes a strong, knowledgeable, compassionate therapist to help people with attachment difficulties. It not only takes the desire to want to try to figure out the person's inner processes, but it also takes the knowledge of how to create a reparative experience. I have been seeing this T since September, and he already has made a huge difference. I have learned to distance myself from people other than T so they don't have to deal with it.

My style came up as "fearful-avoidant" ... So not sure how to change that. I told my T once that I just feel like I'm damaged and that's it. He quickly came in and said not damaged - injured. I don't really see the difference right now. I don't think there's any way to truly fix this problem for me. Once you find yourself in a pattern of being burned over and over, why would you go and put yourself out there again? I think it's inviting more pain and maybe I'm crazy for trying once more with my new T /:

I know exactly what you're feeling.

I've, personally, kept all of the bad stuff locked away forever. I was hurt. I accepted that fact in May. I don't trust anyone, myself most of all.

All I know is, that if I don't do something to alter the course I'm taking, I will certainly stay the way I am, and my life is unraveling in slow motion. So, I allowed myself a little hope, which I think is maybe dumb but...

At least I'm still trying. All you can do is put yourself out there, honestly, to someone safe, that has your best interest at heart, and try.

Im sorry you can relate I don't trust myself either. I feel like I always make such bad choices in relationships, and if its due to my attachment style - i just don't know if it's fixable for me. I really really like my T but I don't know if therapy is working anymore. I feel like a loser....thanks for listening to me.

Thanks so much for this reply. It's really interesting to see how therapy affects people when all the attachment stuff isn't in the way. It's also interesting to me to get a glimpse of how it is experienced from the other side; ie a partner dealing with someone who has problems with attachment. You are totally right attachment problems are difficult from both ends.

I know that the things we feel; doubt, cynicism, a lack of trust. I think they are probably pretty natural reactions to whatever got us here. I don't feel like "loser" is fair for what you're going through. "I feel so helpless" might be a more fair statement.

I'm not sure I feel worthy of being helped yet. If my own empathy is a little.. broken, and if some of the darkness has left me a little dark... do I deserve all of the empathy and caring I'll need to form a better relationship?

I guess I'm a little confused why someone else would wish to help me... especially a stranger. My appointment that was ages away is getting closer (and I know that I wont even get to any of the "baggage" to begin with... for a few sessions.)

Maybe she'll be able to explain why /shrug

Thanks for the thread Asiablue. I don't know what my "attachment style" is. However, I do get strongly attached to a very few. I fell hard for my T after seeing him for 4 years. It was a slow process and just a natural comfortable feeling. Falling in love for me has been a gradual thing with others in my life too. Maybe that is a style? Gradual and hard?

My T betrayed me and I am still reeling over it, crying over it, etc. I never really explored attachment issues with my T so I'm not familiar with making connections to my past. I had a very close relationship with both my parents. It was complicated by alcohol abuse but it was very close nevertheless. I don't believe my close parental relationship had an affect on my feelings for T but it was never explored.

I think when people lead a relatively monotonous, lonely, life then T's role becomes bigger and takes on more meaning. It has been literally crushing for me to be betrayed by my T because I was in love with him.

I think that our attachment styles have a lot to do with our therapy, but they can be changed as the result of a good relationship. And the spots in our attachment that are not so healthy can come up too so we get to work on them.

I have avoidant or disorganized attachment styles that are still present even though I now mainly have secure attachments. Under stress the older, formative attachment issues come out more strongly. Just being aware of this and trying to work with it with some understanding and compassion has helped a lot to veer more toward secure attachments.

Do you think that we can change our personalities and attachment types so easy when these beliefs and past experiences have been ingrained into our systems?
I mean, subconsciously our head might tell us to start to trust but our bodies won't allow it. And therefore put up a barrier.
Like Asia's thread last week on barriers in therapy, can we ever forget the past, our mind forgets but the body doesn't. We give off these little signals to those around us and we know that these will eventually drive others away but we can't help doing them.

Thats a very insightful question. I know that we have mirror neurons, so we are prone to mirror the attitudes of people around us. I think the problem is that when we perceive the world as hostile, and have subconscious fears about trusting, that other people mirror OUR insecurities back to us. So, we create a more hostile environment, which reinforces our insecurity

Its a catch 22.

I wish knowing this could magically solve this.

I felt when I began therapy that I had the fearful-avoidant attachment style. (There is a good description of 4 different adult attachment styles here: Attachment in adults - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But I formed a healthy and secure attachment to my therapist. I think my original fearful-avoidant tendencies from childhood were exacerbated by my long marriage to a man with dismissive-avoidant attachment style. When I went to therapy, it was like a relief to find someone I could securely attach to and have a reciprocal relationship with. I do not have issues in therapy like being mad or feeling abandoned when the T goes on vacation, or wanting the T to be my mother, or wanting him to fill all my needs, or wanting to contact him by email and phone between sessions. We do not talk about transference or issues in our relationship often, because the relationship is by and large, very good. I have had negative transference a couple of times, but it was not enduring, just situational, and we explored it. I think having the experience of attaching securely to my T has helped me to have a secure attachment style. I don't think I would have an important relationship again where I was fearful-avoidant. I just wouldn't participate in that--go back to an old and unpleasant/painful way of being. So I think I have changed, or had my healthier attachment tendencies brought to the fore by working with T. I can't go back and I'm glad.

I do think we can change our attachment style, but I didn't say it was easy. For me it has taken a decade of 2-3x week analysis. Much of the work though was done with my current analyst, so in the past 4-5 years. The work is intensive, and I do lots of self-analysis outside of sessions so I'm always working on these things, but it is making a difference so worth it completely.

The residue of old attachment styles will be there, like I said, and come up when we are stressed or distressed or otherwise triggered. And they can come up unconsciously, but that doesn't mean you can't work on them.

It's not a matter of what you know; that doesn't by itself change anything. It's working with another person on these knots and untying them through lots of contact and practice.

Thanks for this. I finally have some answers. Can't wait to discuss it with my T.

Yes, i do think your attachment styles can be changed but i definitely don't think it is easy and it is dependant on a very good secure therapist who understands adult attachments and can work with different styles of attachment and last the distance. I don't think it's easy to find a therapist like that and the risk to people with attachment worries is massive.

My T says I'm insecurely attached to my parents. I've not figured out what my style is as it seems to vary but I have a LOT of trust issues.

Interesting questionnaire. I had a low anxiety score and a high avoidance score. Based on this, I am dismissive. My result did not surprise me. It was accurate, except for the high self-confidence part. I am autistic so that would explain my attachment type.

The questionnaire was referring to intimate relationships. Obviously, my relationship is different with my therapist. I managed to form a bond with her but there is some emotional distance. Even though, I trust her, I tend not to rely on her (outside of the office), since I prefer to work through things on my own.

My relationship with my therapist is fairly stable. I think trust has a lot to do with it.