Attachment-Based Psychotherapy: Helping Patients Develop Adaptive Capacities

Description

Our early attachment experiences with our primary caregiver influence the adult that we become. These experiences forge our patterns of communication, emotional experience, intimate relationships, and way of living in the world. If our early attachments are secure, we learn to access and communicate adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. In contrast, if our early attachment experiences are insecure, we may struggle with dysregulated, maladaptive emotions and have difficulties in our intimate relationships leading to anxiety, depression, and excessive or misdirected anger. This book presents an attachment-based approach to therapy that addresses the limiting and detrimental effects of negative early attachment experiences. Attachment-based psychotherapy has two major components: establishing a security-engendering therapeutic relationship and helping the patient to communicate more openly and thus to access more adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Psychotherapists of various theoretical orientations will appreciate this book's richly detailed conceptualization of common human problems, as well as clear treatment approach for addressing these problems.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsAttachment, Communication, and Affect: An IntroductionI. An Attachment-Based View of DevelopmentWhy Mothers Matter: The Evolution of Maternal CareThe Neural Sculpting of the SelfAttachmentCommunicationAffectII. Attachment-Based PsychotherapyDefensive Exclusion and the Focus of Attachment-Based TherapyAnxiety, Depression, and Maladaptive AngerThe Security-Engendering Therapeutic RelationshipDeconstructing Aloneness: Helping the Patient Access and Communicate Excluded Thoughts, Feelings, and BehaviorsReferencesIndexAbout the Author