Is therapy for “attachment disorders” in adults bogus?

One can learn about some of these things by simply facing the wall and meditating. Has been done for centuries. Costs nothing, no submerging oneself into an imposed hierarchy, no mind games at the hands of an inscrutable stranger wielding nebulous methods and theories whose motives are uncertain. This is not relational though, so has limits. But I know of no evidence that doing these things with a paid professional, whether psychodynamic or not, consistently makes people healthier or happier enough of the time to justify all the claims, the cost, the serious risks.

Seems to me an intimate relationship in the real world is far more likely to provide a reparative experience along the lines of secure attachment, given that it's (a) real and not contrived, and (b) the degree of investment is closer to proportional.

I don't see how one can have a secure attachment to a therapist. Seems an oxymoron. A needy or dependent client is likely to be deeply invested in the relationship after some period of time, whereas the therapist never will be. That asymmetry means the therapist values the relationship far less, and could drop it with relatively little pain. That sounds quite insecure.

Also if one does have a secure sort of attachment with a therapist, seems that implies dependency. Dependency on a parent is a good thing, but a paid stranger? I thought I had something secure, but my therapist saw it as dependency, and that became the basis for termination and severing of all contact. Result: my sense of sense, relationally, is worse than ever.

I've always had secure attachments with my therapists, but I tend to have secure attachments in life in general. It is actually the opposite of dependency. It the ability to have relationship AND be one's self at the same time, to be able to have a healthy reliance on another human being while at the same time feeling secure that you can make it through on your own even when that other person isn't there. Even in real life, the ability for a relationship to end for a variety of reasons is always there; one can fear relationship and feel very insecure because of fear of it ending in any relationship. There are no guarantees.

If a therapist is able to work with a client who is dealing with insecurity about relationships, it seems quite possible they can help a client reach a place where they can live in less fear and find more comfort in personal autonomy over time. But I would suspect it takes time and a therapist very skilled in walking that tightrope between professionalism and personal relationship so that a client understands the real separation between them as two adult human beings. I think the real danger is a sort of enmeshment where the client can't clearly see where the therapist ends and where they begin (and perhaps visa versa in some cases).

This post seems extremely well-written and describes an experience in life that I simply do not have. And have not gained. Perhaps you can see, Lola, from the other side, what it might take for someone to help lead another person into secure attachments. But then I wonder -- perhaps it needs a therapist who has secure attachments? I know my last therapist said that she had an anxious-ambivalent attachment style, as she thought I did.

So, OK then, if the therapy for attachments disorders is not bogus, what are the statistics on success/failure and length of time in treatment? Seems like that's something clients need for realistic decision-making going into it?

My husband has severe attachment problems and has finally seemed to find a place of healing. He also saw my therapist, and I think what our therapist did was to show us together how to help my husband find and trust and accept secure attachment in his relationship with me and with my family.

I think that was one of the advantages in us both seeing the same therapist. Rather than the whole attachment resolution being tied to the therapist, the therapist worked with us together to help my husband reach that place in his real-world relationship with me. And we did need that help. We had been married some 20 years before we started seeing our therapist, and our relationship had been plagued with issues often tied to my husband's difficulty in trusting and his fear of abandonment. We DID need the help of a therapist, and fortunately, we had that help.

My husband has really been able to move beyond those fears now and is so much more peaceful and content than he has ever been before. So I know the power of a good therapist to help a person move from serious attachment problems to a place of autonomy and secure attachments, but it was accomplished in the context of our real-world relationship with the guidance and direction of a very competent therapist.

This is a really interesting example. Seems like it could be used a model of what helps -- competent therapist PLUS real-world relationship(s).

I'm widowed and was so discouraged/depressed with other things in life that I didn't go back to work after my husband died, then had major family issues with the health of my parents. So I'm pretty alone.

You are a teacher, correct? I wonder -- do you think there might be a role for a teacher in helping people with these issues? Could be done in a group setting, which could provide some social support and relationships of a sort. Just speculating. . .what's being done now has not helped me much and I don't believe that I'm the only one in a similar situation.

Exactly. That was my point. Anecdotal info is always useful, but there is too much at stake to go in blind.

I maintain that it is bogus. Precisely because there is nothing concrete to back it up… and because of how aggressively it is marketed and how casually it is undertaken, despite this.

To my mind it's like throwing a dagger straight up in the air and then seeing what happens.

Agreed, there's too much at stake to go in blind -- and I believe that there has been far more harm done than people know.

But how concrete does it need to be to back it up for you? What's there now is woefully inadequate, I agree. Just for reference how do you feel about the theory of relativity? There were predictions which came out accurate for that one, for sure.

I think psychology needs some good theories and just doesn't have them yet, and no way to generate them in the current professional and academic climate. Kind of like medicine before the germ theory of disease.

ETA: HOWEVER, there is an excellent post in the Attachment Disorders forum that has a lot more than I ever knew about attachment!! Maybe the science of psychology IS getting somewhere, just not in the therapies yet. Here's the link:

http://forums.psychcentral.com/attac...ttachment.html

Yhing is that theories are just that, theoretical. We don't know enough about the human brain to be able to pinpoint what does and doesnt work, what actions will have what effect etc.

I do agree that it should be registered as a practice and that records should be kept of some sort. Like if you enter it you undertake a questionnaire and then when you end. Then some form of statistical analysis can be carried out and at least clients would have something to go on whrreas now they have nothing really. It is pot luck and if you are up for it then great, if not then great too. Thing is that a lot of people dont realise it is pot luck when they enter it and that is not their fault. They put trust and faith into proffessional people when in reality those people often have no more idea about what they ate doing than us. It is just two people in a room, trying to find their way. It is not a science, outcomes cannot be predicted, but more information should be available to the general public based on past experiences, "successes" and "failures", two things that can only be truly judged from the point of view of the client.

Bollocks

How so??

Which part?

I believe that you can work on attachment issues, and possibly get some resolution with a therapist... but I agree that it takes a really, really strong, centered, good therapist to help with the work.

I think it requires a therapist that has dealt with their own stuff successfully, has a stable sense of themselves, and can withstand whatever a client throws at them without reacting from an emotional place (i.e. being defensive, or angry, etc.)

I think these therapists are really, really rare. I've seen a lot of therapists, and there have been some really astonishing failures (I know I've mentioned it before, but there was one that I asked about phase oriented therapy, because the expert who diagnosed me with a dissociative disorder recommended it and I had never heard of it... this new therapist answered me angrily with, "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive!" - yikes!)

I don't have any kind of proof, because I still haven't found a therapist that is able to really help me, or create the kind of environment that I seem to need to feel safe and open up.

Have you checked out this blog:https://boundaryninjatales.com/

I'm not sure how active it is these days, but it's got some really amazing information in it. I'm looking through some past posts, and it seems like the writer was in therapy (on and off) for 20+ years before she found her current, awesome, attachment-focused therapist. I *wish* I could see her therapist, seriously... he just sounds so.... amazing and competent and grounded.

I actually tried to describe some of that to my T, and he said something like "why are you telling me this?" Ugh.

Her T talks about how he is an "attachment figure", and how she should contact him any time she needs to, and he responds to her! The idea is that she has to learn to trust that he's there for her (and then he actually has to be there for her). I'm probably messing some of this up, but it seems to have worked really, really well for her... I think she's either finished up therapy or might be close? But if you read her writing, she's dealt with some really horrible childhood crap (and has a long history of therapy from before this T too!)- and this T seems to be helping.

I think she explains things well, but I can't pull up a specific entry right now to point you towards. It's worth a peek though, and you can use the word cloud on the right to find attachment-related articles.

Anyway, I'm really sorry to hear that things ended so badly with the last T. I thought that you had gotten a lot out of seeing her? No? Was the ending bad enough to erase the good things? Either way, I'm really sorry to hear it.

And, I'm surprised that she admitted her attachment style to you! I'd think that a T who works with clients with attachment struggles needs to know how to keep a secure attachment herself! Hmmm....

It's all really hard. I wish there were better answers. I wish that the really good Ts were easier to find!

Thanks for the Boundary Ninja Tales link. Looks like some very interesting stuff! I'll enjoy looking through it, lots of different things.

My last T was a specialist in trauma and dissociation and I believe that she did help a lot with that. She used the phase idea and we worked in mostly in a psychodynamic style. But she had also diagnosed some personality disorder issues, which I agree with, and did not have special training in personality disorders nor, I now believe, was she aware of all of her own issues. Perhaps/probably? I triggered some of hers.

At any rate, she was probably an attachment figure in the early years of our therapy but wasn't able to sustain it until I really internalized or developed a secure self, however that might be described. . .but even though it has been very hard I don't feel that I have to have that now because I have all of my "parts", the previously cut-off emotions and impulses, from the trauma therapy.

So all in all I've been very lucky. Reading and posting here on PC has been very helpful, filling in and providing a kind of place where I can try to be myself and see the consequences without totally dying of embarassment at my many social faux pas. That's sort of what I have felt that I needed, once the dissociated parts were well known, in order to learn and develop a sense of myself.

The personality stuff -- that's definitely related to narcissism and shame and when a therapy experience sends you back to feeling worthless, useless, bad, horrible, etc. I don't think that the stories we write here about that can be understood or "empathized" with by people who haven't experienced them. The problem is that it just destroys (again, like in an early childhood experience? I certainly don't remember but it's the theory) your sense of self and you never developed a whole, strong one to begin with!

Maybe therapy isn't the only way to get that, though. It's just so hard, you don't know what you're missing if you never had it.

Apologies. I had a bit to drink last night. I am not going to even begin to try and work out what I was talking about!

And, I was thanking you for using the word 'Bollocks' -- it's been a real long while since I've heard it 'spoken' (especially with any fervor

It's a lovely word. Rolls right off the tongue

Understandable. Nevertheless, probably something interesting behind that reaction but maybe now isn't the time to discuss it!

I did six years of therapy with this ex T who has just ended with me. He was my attachment figure. We talked about that a lot. I related to him as though he were a kind dad to my younger fragile parts. That is why the abrupt sudden termination with no communication or explanation from him is so painful for me. I am like a young child whose main attachment figure has just buggered off.
I do think it is important to learn to attach successfully from the broken parts of the self that were young and did not have safe attachments. It is scary work and it is delicate work and it requires a lot of love. He gave me a lot of love. I trusted him. He might yet pull through for me. I sometimes really believe that he will because of how he was with me.
But I have found the ability to be the hidden me in my sessions, to be invaluable. He 'met' the parts of me that were so frightened and young and vulnerable and taught her that she was okay and she had feelings that made sense once you know my history.
It was good work. I am just hoping I don't lose all of it because of this truly crap surreal and utterly unexpected sudden impersonal termination. Massive rupture and shock for me. that is the down side of attachment work, when the therapist bails out suddenly taking half your heart and most of your dopamine levels with them.

To be honest I don't think therapy has much to do with psychology. The above article on shame is interesting, but do therapists think they can apply these ideas in the context of an engineered relationship with an adult and produce any sort of consistent or predictable results? I'm not buying it.

I do believe that many people can improve in the relationships area via therapy but I think the whole structure of client-therapist is quite unusual and unnatural, it is not trivial to directly apply it to everyday relationships, especially personal ones. I always feel that it is much easier for me to model professional relationships with therapy but perhaps that is my own attachment issue speaking (a tendency to keep most people at arm's length). I personally believe what was mentioned on this thread before, that the best way to improve attachment issues is in a close, mutual, intimate relationship. The way therapy is most useful in this context IMO is to enhance our relationship with ourselves, so we can better relate to a partner as well.

That sounds a lot like enmeshment.

Enmeshment is an entirely different thing.
My T is always there when I need her ( well almost always at least. She always gets back to me with in 24 hrs)
But she doesn't NEED me to need her, or encourage me to need her for her own gain, which is a key factor in enmeshment/codependence.

Her goal really is MY growth and health. I am familiar with the boundary ninja blog and her T is the same as mine.

Its an excellent, thought provoking, and well written blog.

My therapist was often there when I needed her. It was unquestionably a case of enmeshed needs. When therapy fell apart, so did she. A dispassionate clinician who was not in it for her sense of self would not have lost it. The stereotype is the therapist who enters the profession to feel needed. Outwardly they can say it's all about the client, but inwardly they thrive on the constant stream of worshippers filing through their office. It's like hand and glove.

I honestly do not think I have ever in my life met someone LESS in need of worshippers than my T......

So what does it mean when you can't really get "attached" to anyone? And the thought of doing so is simultaneously beautiful and completely terrifying and suffocating? And you're an adult with zero trauma or problems in life?