Attachment work or abandonment work?

Anastasia~ · Aug 18, 2017, 12:37 AM

]Many therapists promote talk therapy to heal attachment injury... and yet clients spend most of the time in an abandonment state.

I hear what you are saying. Clients go to therapy about once a week and are left in abandonment states in between. I did that. First T inconsistently reinforced me (answer my email, call) -- and intermittently responding to a babies cries, is thought to create a preoccupied attachment. (Bowlby, I'm not sure if there is new info.)
My current T is very consistent and tells me that is his goal. He rarely takes off, he is always on time, he always answers my texts and answers them empathically. He always tells me that it is okay to text him, and now I believe him.

At first, I did spend a lot of the time in an abandonment state, but this has lessened and I am feeling grounded much more frequently. I still have abandonment states but they are less frequent and less intense. This is after five years of consistency. Yes, I still have times when it becomes somewhat intense and that's when I post about it here, and text T if I need to. I still have episodes.

I think that fewer Ts know how to deal with attachment issues than ones that do. It makes me sad.

As far as what to name it, I would call it Interpersonal Relational Therapy. I say this because it is thought that attachment issues arise from interpersonal relations issues (often mother/child). This is where the parents, most of the time not purposefully, fail to validate a child's various ego states. (my take on what I've read)

Human attachment is generally characterized by lots of contact. Therapy inverts that, and calls it healing.

A lot of people are hurt by therapists who don't get it. Some Ts who assume things like clients are being manipulative/exaggerating emotions, ____fill in whatever negative cause____etc., instead of looking for a real root cause for behavior. I agree that therapy can't redo what wasn't done completely, but for me, it has made a big difference. Again, I have bad days/times still but am so much more functional at home and work. Therapists should warn people of the dangers that therapy may cause, such as when a patient has a lot of difficulty dealing with the limitations of therapy. I have done a lot of healing, but I will never be so called normal.

Shouldn't it be called abandonment work rather than attachment work?

Some therapists think abandonment/attachment issues are due to OCD. They think that thinking of the T is the obsession and calling them is the compulsion. If this were true, and people treated attachment issues with OCD treatments, which I suspect has already been tried, we would have a cure now. I believe that it is due to relational trauma, due to parents often inadvertent disavowal of parts of the child that the parent doesn't like. If a parent has a part that she disavows, then the parent will do the same to the child. I believe this disavowal of parts can cause a personality disorder. MOre on OCD. . .

Isn't this (small doses of contact, extended withdrawal) a recipe for crashing affect regulation and inducing addictive patterns?

Yes, it absolutely can be and is. The more I trust my T will be there, the less I need to text him generally. It feels addictive, it feels like OCD. But I believe that healthy attachment much improves the mental health of the person. Because it is that important, I think (but don't know) that maybe the OCD nature of it makes it more likely that the child will attach to the caregiver. I wonder if toddlers feel OCD like. ? If the child does not, the OCD like attributes of seeking a trusted adult ensures that the person seeks the attachment of an authority figure and thus, bettering mental health. Yes, it does at times cause a crashing effect, which in turn may increase the need to contact.
I'm not sure if it's a recipe for crashing affect regulation and inducing addictive patterns, even in the best of circumstances crashing affect and OCD like behavior are unfortunately part and parcel of both successful therapy, and become devastatingly debilitating in unhealthy therapy. Again, this is just what I think, may or may not be fact. I am open to other ideas.

And doesn't this conflict account for much of the traffic on therapy forums?...
therapist on holiday
therapist not replying to text/email
googling therapist
trouble coping until next session
obsessive thoughts
etc.[/quote]

Yes. Again, it is part and parcel of attachment therapy and unfortunately ends up in termination/failure/abandonment more often than it should.

I am very lucky and know it. (And was very devastated prior to now at my termination) I won't be cured but am already better. My T goes on holiday next week and instead of needing to contact him because of attachment, I desperately want to text him what happened after therapy a few days ago and what I worked out. I don't know what to call this, but it's different from the abandonment text. OR is it? I don't know.

I get that you had an excruciating, unfair termination and you have every right to question, be cynical, angry at the system that allowed an incompetent T to retraumatize you. My termination was painful and I will never forget it and I get how you feel and I also see the benefits if you can find a competent T. Take care.

.

koru_kiwi · Aug 18, 2017, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calilady

Here's what I question on these forums (and this isn't geared to anyone)...

Counting down the minutes to a therapy appointment.
Putting the T relationship above all other relationships.
Obsessing about the T relationship.
Repeatedly telling the T, who cannot reciprocate your feelings, how much you love and miss them- perhaps even desiring them- constantly.
Not being able to leave them, even if you haven't improved and even if it hurts too much (retraumatization?).

These are just some of the behaviors that many of us talk about and I'm guilty of as well, but this is not secure attachment. It makes me wonder if the T is aware of the client's feelings (I'd say, probably) and what they are doing about it. That's an entire other discussion, but its science that the more someone makes themselves unavailable to us, the more we want them and the T just can't reciprocate. For damaged people w/healing to do, it just is a tall order and I think that's evidenced on boards like these.

I'm totally GUILTY of these things myself...and I'm not securely attached.

I'm not saying it never works, but I don't find many people- after scouring boards- that have come out of it clean, on the other side. I'd love to read about the case studies where it as worked out and if anyone has that info, I'd be glad to take a look at it because it might help me. I wonder if some clients might be continuing a pattern of trying to get an unavailable person to love them (as in my case). I've read about people suffering for years with their T, only to be told, "You can't leave the T you're attached to, you have to work this out through them." But they are stuck in years of therapy. They can't leave because it's too painful and it's agonizing for them to stay.

When do you release the microscope that you're viewing your life through and just live it? People who are in therapy for 10+ years, can't leave their T, are too attached and living in fear that they might die or move...and the T knows about it and doesn't terminate because they have their own issues. I feel for those people and have chatted with those people. My heart goes out to them. They know what it looks like to be securely attached, but despite their best efforts, they have no idea how to accomplish this, even in years of therapy, even by doing what they were told to do and not leave their T...some even seem worse off for it.

It's a slippery slope. I'm sure it works for some, but there are so many dang variables in there, that it's tough to even gauge.

completly agree with all of this and could not have said it better.

i do consider that i have come out the other side with the ending of my therapy and have moved past the attachment issues, but it was painfully messy and left me with new scars...some that were worse than the scars i actually showed up to therapy with in the first place. as if i traded one trauma for an entirely new one. but it wasn't the conventional methods in therapy that my ex-T was using that facilitated my ability to move through to the other side...it was more of the catalyst that ignited my desire to get the f*%$ out of there as unscathed as possible.

i find it utterly baffling, sometimes frustrating, but also completely intriguing, as to why so many of us who post here seem to have this exact same experince in therapy and why so often some people will just blindly accept that that is the way the therapy has to play out to get through this. like you said, calilady, i just don't see many who ever claim to have come out the other side unscathed and completely healed. and this is the part that frustrates me, because i don't see the evidence here, or on other online support forums, that the methods that many of the professionals are executing in therapy are helping us clients to over come our underlying early and primal fears that are the main contributors to these issues. if anything, some of their methods and beliefs are reinforcing those fears and ingraining them further.

when and where does all this unnecessary mind f*&%ing end? how much BS are people willing to continue to tolerate before they say enough is enough? these are just some questions that cross my mind when i come here and keep reading time and time again of clients going through the same crazy c*@p that i did and i can't help but to feel frustrated, sad, and angered for them.

nottrustin · Aug 18, 2017, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomanycats

I just think you're generalizing. I don't think therapy subjects people to repeated abandonments. I think people who are terrified of abandonment see it everywhere even when it's not happening.

Exactly. I have abandonment issues with everyone. Of I want good enough for my own father to want to be in my life. So even after being married 23 years i still have days where I fear hubby will leave. I have an amazing neat friend who loves me unconditionally and has for 12 years..she knows my issues and occasionally reminds me I am good enough. I occasionally wonder about t and misread things but it is my issue and we work through it. T and I have discussed at great length that it is important to have people I am close to even if it might mean I get hurt.

BayBrony · Aug 18, 2017, 04:43 PM

I think the thing is, resolving abandonment issues as an adult involves coming to terms with very challenging truths. I don't think clients OR therapists are necessarily generally ready or able to face those truths

Because as an adult you CAN'T be abandoned. You are your own saviour. You might need help, or insight or guidance, but only you can save yourself.

Humans in general do not like this idea. THAT is why we buy stuff and run after things ( like the song says, I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains, etc), follow teachers, read books . We want an easy answer. Most of us, Ts included, aren't comfortable with our naked selves, we can't tolerate our undistracted feelings.

A T can't teach that unless they themselves know it. Which generally means they have to do a LOT of their own work. Which a lot of Ts haven't done.

My T shows me a great deal of love. I am very attached to her . And yet she herself says, when i am so certain that I am good and loveable and my own north star, that she could reject me and i could say " it hurts that you are rejecting me, but I am ok. I am whole without you. I am loved without you"...THEN the work is done.

The core of abandonment work as an adult is NOT feeling loved ( which i at least want it to be because feeling loved feels great)....its understanding that you don't need anyone to love you exceot yourself . Understanding no one needs to complete you.

No idea how you screen for that sort of self awareness in a T.

BayBrony · Aug 18, 2017, 04:54 PM

That's not unique to the T relationship. Most relationship issues, at their core, involve conflating love with need, and not understanding that each individual is whole and complete as they are

mostlylurking · Aug 18, 2017, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomanycats

The promise is not to learn to tolerate abandonment -- it's to learn that not every separation is abandonment.

It's not abandonment when you don't get a text or email back.
It's not abandonment when your therapist goes on vacation.
It's not abandonment when your therapist doesn't see you every day and isn't always there.

Just because it feels like you're being abandoned does not mean that you are being abandoned. The person feels abandoned because of things that happened in their early developmental years.

That last bit is the whole problem-- the person feels abandoned because of what happened in their early years.

When you start accessing that early pain and trauma to try to deal with it, it's like that young child part of you comes forward, you remember how you felt then, you remember the desperate longing to be properly cared for. You are not, as a client, entirely in your adult mind. The earlier the trauma you experienced, the younger the feelings.

How does a two year old see its parent going out of town for two weeks? As abandonment. In a healthy parent-child relationship it can be worked through and handled, but nonetheless, a two year old feels grief, rage, a whole range of strong emotions at the removal of a parent for even quite short periods of time. You can see why a therapist vacation can be awful for someone who was improperly cared for in their early years, then.

There's something called the Still Face Experiment where a parent is interacting with their baby, and then on a cue from the researcher, they make their face go blank for a minute or two. Babies freak out and start to cry quite quickly when they're ignored like this. Of course as adults we know that taking 8 hours to reply to an email is reasonable, but some clients are having to tamp down the very young child who wants a response in 60 seconds.

It's not the client's fault, because if you don't access those young feelings you're not going to process anything-- you basically have to let those feelings come to the surface. But the examples toomanycats gave -- no response to a message, a vacation, a week in between sessions -- those feel like abandonment to a young child. I agree, we know as adults that it's not abandonment. (If only our child parts could be healed by our adult intellect that would be awesome! I so wish this were true!)

Maybe this could be remedied somewhat by screening for early trauma and early attachment issues, and offering a different schedule of therapy to such clients. Early on, frequent sessions and lots of out of session contact could be offered. As some security was established, this could be tapered to a more typical therapy schedule. Many therapists wouldn't do this, but some could specialize in it.

I do agree that for child parts hurt at young ages, therapy feels a lot like abandonment, and there is a possibility of retraumatization. This goes triple for therapist termination, needless to say.

Calilady · Aug 18, 2017, 06:44 PM

Very good points @mostlylurking

And my T wasn't adept at these issues, but also, it activated her own attachment system. She avoided me. Pushed me away. Couldnt handle what I was feeling and she lied to me about cancelling an appointment. In only the second phone call in nearly a year and half, she became frustrated with me and I could hear her ambivalence towards me and I felt so awful...for her. I went into caretaking for her, putting my needs on the back burner.

Reenactment and retraumatization ensued. She may have tried to start to pull us out of it (at the end), but then she coped with that by lying. It was done and there I was heartbroken, feeling everything I did as a kid.

I know what secure attachment should look like, but I knew how to get there, I wouldn't need therapy. Lol.

pegasus · Aug 18, 2017, 06:44 PM

Attachment therapy...

www.howtherapyworks.com/working-inner-child/

BudFox · Aug 18, 2017, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomanycats

The promise is not to learn to tolerate abandonment -- it's to learn that not every separation is abandonment.

It's not abandonment when you don't get a text or email back.
It's not abandonment when your therapist goes on vacation.
It's not abandonment when your therapist doesn't see you every day and isn't always there.

Just because it feels like you're being abandoned does not mean that you are being abandoned. The person feels abandoned because of things that happened in their early developmental years. The idea is to experience a healthy human relationship where the therapist, unlike the person's parents, is not abusive and holds steady boundaries that are predictable. You experience -- many times, over time, that a person's not being right there all the time doesn't lead to abandonment.

If the client feels they are being abandoned, then by defintion they are experiencing something like an abandonment or separation crisis. It doesn't have to be literal to evoke the same harmful patterns.

If they have a history that predicts such a response, that does not make the re-encactment of it in therapy justified. In fact common sense suggests it might be damaging and a horrible idea.

Basically, the client is put in a hazardous situation FIRST, then must attempt to find a way back to safety or equilibrium SECOND. This is the opposite of a prudent approach to healthcare or healing, which puts client safety first.

ps: I said premise not promise.

toomanycats · Aug 18, 2017, 07:47 PM

So how would you suggest someone learn that not every separation is abandonment?

toomanycats · Aug 18, 2017, 07:49 PM

Or are you suggesting that they should just live forever with a huge fear of abandonment, thinking that the people important to them in their lives are constantly abandoning them?

Is there really ANY reason you can think of why anyone should seek therapy of any kind? Because, generally, I only ever see you on here bashing therapy.

BudFox · Aug 18, 2017, 08:21 PM

I just find it staggering that all therapy forums are dominated by the same handful of topics involving clients in crisis because they are emotionally dependent on a person with whom they have almost no have physical proximity, and only the most tenuous emotional proximity, and this is called "attachment" and is enthusiastically promoted.

Main point to me is the incongruence of an attachment-ish relationship that is based on distance and separation. That simple really.

I completely understand the desire to heal these problems, and the difficulty of living with them, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect some sort of honesty about all this.

nottrustin · Aug 18, 2017, 08:40 PM

this is one of the issues we are dealing with in EMDR. At my last appointment we started the actual EMDR. We were dealing with a specific event that happened in my early 20's. That day after trying for years to get my dad to care about me I realized I would never be important to him. When it happened then I shut down and said "fine I'm done"..but when dealing with it in therapy I ended up feeling like a young child screaming "look at me care about me: over and over" it was pretty intense. Since it was getting close to the end of my appointment T felt it was time to take me back to my safe place. This week long term T had a medical emergency. She will be out for at least 2 weeks. Ok she apologized for taking the time odd but I told her she needs to take all the time necessary to heal. At the same time there have been red I have dealt like on EMDR where I just want to cry and don't leave me... which is crazy. This has nothing to do with our relationship but I can't help going there.

toomanycats · Aug 19, 2017, 09:30 AM

But this is the psychotherapy sub-forum... this is only a small part of this entire site. I'm sure if you look at the entire site as a whole, you will find that many more people are posting about things that have nothing to do with attachment to or work with a therapist. This sub-forum isn't a good sampling of the entire psych community - this sub-forum is literally dedicated to this topic. Edit to add: it's like going to the substance abuse section of this forum and saying "why does everyone in the psych world have a substance abuse problem?"

BayBrony · Aug 19, 2017, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomanycats

But this is the psychotherapy sub-forum... this is only a small part of this entire site. I'm sure if you look at the entire site as a whole, you will find that many more people are posting about things that have nothing to do with attachment to or work with a therapist. This sub-forum isn't a good sampling of the entire psych community - this sub-forum is literally dedicated to this topic. Edit to add: it's like going to the substance abuse section of this forum and saying "why does everyone in the psych world have a substance abuse problem?"

This. I specifically sought out this forum to find someplace where people understood my feelings about my T. Tbere is powerful selection bias if you are looking at this forum as representative of people in therapy. It's representative of people in therapy with powerful enough feelings/experiences thar they sought out a specific place to talk about it....thats not most people in therapy.

And for me the experience of "small rejections " where my T is not there when i need her and i FEEL abandoned but am clearly NOT has been one if the most healing things AND the thing with one of the most profound influences on my real life relationships. My marriage in particular has improved greatly. I used to feel very insecure and be. Very easily hurt. Now I've learned to give healthy space without feeling like the relationship is threatened . That's HUGE. I'm happier my wife is happier. She just got season tickets for college football ( which i hate ) and is over the moon excited. A few years ago I would have been hurt by her wanting to spend an entire season of Saturday's away from me....

stopdog · Aug 19, 2017, 10:49 AM

I think if one looks at those guy's literature - it is apparent that they believe attachment madness is going on in most approaches. Some of them, like that Yalom asshole, even get upset and scold clients who are not super attached to him (of course - Yalom reports that he is highly critical of clients in general and lectures and scolds them for all sorts of reasons -so he is just an all around jerkwad).

elisewin · Aug 19, 2017, 11:35 AM

Who is he stopdog?

stopdog · Aug 19, 2017, 11:38 AM

Irvin D. Yalom

ElectricManatee · Aug 19, 2017, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BayBrony

This. I specifically sought out this forum to find someplace where people understood my feelings about my T. Tbere is powerful selection bias if you are looking at this forum as representative of people in therapy. It's representative of people in therapy with powerful enough feelings/experiences thar they sought out a specific place to talk about it....thats not most people in therapy.

And for me the experience of "small rejections " where my T is not there when i need her and i FEEL abandoned but am clearly NOT has been one if the most healing things AND the thing with one of the most profound influences on my real life relationships. My marriage in particular has improved greatly. I used to feel very insecure and be. Very easily hurt. Now I've learned to give healthy space without feeling like the relationship is threatened . That's HUGE. I'm happier my wife is happier. She just got season tickets for college football ( which i hate ) and is over the moon excited. A few years ago I would have been hurt by her wanting to spend an entire season of Saturday's away from me....

Agreed. My wife is also in therapy but not for the same reasons I am, so her experience of therapy is very different. It would never even occur to her to find a forum like this, much less post on it. I imagine her In Session post looking like this:

Saw T today. Discussed things going on with work and my family. T had some good insights, and I appreciated being able to talk about what was on my mind. Will be back in 1-2 weeks, won't struggle with being away from T in the meantime.

Totally different.

SoupDragon · Aug 19, 2017, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BayBrony

Tbere is powerful selection bias if you are looking at this forum as representative of people in therapy. It's representative of people in therapy with powerful enough feelings/experiences thar they sought out a specific place to talk about it....thats not most people in therapy.

I posted on this forum a lot when I first started seeing my T and can relate to the push / pull of therapy, abandonment / attachment issues.

A few years down the line, yes there are still hic-cups, but not the relentless, powerful feelings I initially had. So I agree, this forum may be representative of some people, to talk about these specific difficulties, but not necessarily representative of all in therapy.

For me the work has been in building my resilience, changing my perspective in relation to T and I don't think I could have cut corners here and avoided the really tough times with T, it was learning to tolerate those feelings, that have allowed me to get through them.

toomanycats · Aug 19, 2017, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

Agreed. My wife is also in therapy but not for the same reasons I am, so her experience of therapy is very different. It would never even occur to her to find a forum like this, much less post on it. I imagine her In Session post looking like this:

Saw T today. Discussed things going on with work and my family. T had some good insights, and I appreciated being able to talk about what was on my mind. Will be back in 1-2 weeks, won't struggle with being away from T in the meantime.

Totally different.

This is my husband, too. He would never look for a forum about this topic, because he does not experience therapy the same way I do.

BudFox · Aug 19, 2017, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomanycats

But this is the psychotherapy sub-forum... this is only a small part of this entire site. I'm sure if you look at the entire site as a whole, you will find that many more people are posting about things that have nothing to do with attachment to or work with a therapist. This sub-forum isn't a good sampling of the entire psych community - this sub-forum is literally dedicated to this topic. Edit to add: it's like going to the substance abuse section of this forum and saying "why does everyone in the psych world have a substance abuse problem?"

What does the rest of this site have to do with this discussion? I'm talking about this forum, the psychotherapy forum. This is not a discussion about the psych community.

I've been on 4 or 5 other therapy forums (on other sites besides psychcentral). They're all the same! The discussions are interchangeable.

BudFox · Aug 19, 2017, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BayBrony

Tbere is powerful selection bias if you are looking at this forum as representative of people in therapy. It's representative of people in therapy with powerful enough feelings/experiences thar they sought out a specific place to talk about it....thats not most people in therapy.

But there is no selection bias involved when people assert this place is NOT representative of therapy, even though that claim is completely unsupportable? C'mon.

Forums like this are the ONLY way to see impacts of therapy. That's why therapists generally badmouth and avoid forums... they don't want to see what they are doing to people. They want to preserve the fantasy. And they don't want their clients seeing it either.

Also if the contention is that this place is dominated by people who respond strongly to therapy or who have deeper conflicts, then what better place to look to see the effects of therapy attachment/dependency than this place?

toomanycats · Aug 19, 2017, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BudFox

But there is no selection bias involved when people assert this place is NOT representative of therapy, even though that claim is completely unsupportable? C'mon.

Forums like this are the ONLY way to see impacts of therapy. That's why therapists generally badmouth and avoid forums... they don't want to see what they are doing to people. They want to preserve the fantasy. And they don't want their clients seeing it either.

Also if the contention is that this place is dominated by people who respond strongly to therapy or who have deeper conflicts, then what better place to look to see the effects of therapy attachment/dependency than this place?

Because, here, you have a numerator, but not a denominator.

You have no idea how many people are in therapy who do NOT relate to this forum and are not present in these communities.

I would wager that far...far more people are in therapy than are represented here. Meaning that this is a very poor selection to use for defining anything whatsoever about therapy.

You are literally walking into a subculture and saying it defines the entire culture. That is just illogical.

BudFox · Aug 19, 2017, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stopdog

I think if one looks at those guy's literature - it is apparent that they believe attachment madness is going on in most approaches. Some of them, like that Yalom asshole, even get upset and scold clients who are not super attached to him (of course - Yalom reports that he is highly critical of clients in general and lectures and scolds them for all sorts of reasons -so he is just an all around jerkwad).

I sense that many of them crave the attachment as much as clients. They keep the ones that make them feel good, and punt the rest.

Yalom is the poster boy for the self-involved therapist with raging god-complex. Yalom the Messiah. He needs a good a*s-kicking.

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