Attachment, Resilience and Agency

1. Attachment, Resilience and Agency The Concurrent Development of the Individual and of their Attachment Relationships

2. Having a successful career comes at a cost to your family and friends. • If you become too dependent on your loved ones, you may become less effective in your wider relationships and activities. • In order to truly love another person you must first learn to love yourself

3. SELF IN RELATION TO OTHERS “There is no such thing as a child” (Winnicott, 1965) There is no such thing as an individual. Internal Working Model of Self and Other (Bowlby) Corollary for Individual Wellbeing

4. Improvements in Attachment Relationships Result in Improved Individual Wellbeing Studies showing improved marital satisfaction results in improvements in depression(Leffet,al 2000; Beach et,al 2008; Robertson et,al 2008; Johnson 2008) Improvement with depression in women with eating disorders when attachment anxiety was attended to. (Tascaet,al 2007) Improved attachment relationship experiences results in better outcomes for PTSD(Johnson 2009, Allen 2006, Muller & Rosenkranz 2009) Sexual Dysfunction is increasingly being treated in the context of relational dynamics and the way couples experience themselves in relation to their partner (Schnarch, 1991, 2002). A series of studies link negative emotional experiences in attachment relationships to poor physical health, including cardiovascular and immune system disorders (Johnson 2009).

5. I.W.M. • An “internal working model” contains our expectations for how current and future relationships will unfold, and for how we will experience ourselves and others in that relationship. • These are symbolic or representational mud-maps that determine how we perceive, edit, and interpret our relationship experiences. • Because these mud-maps shape our response to others, they also shape the actual relationship dynamics, and so become self-reinforcing.

6. AGENCY Bandura Agency Vs Communion Agency Vs Determinism Agency Vs Control, Resilience

7. Attachment Relationships is where Agency is Conceived and where it finds Expression

8. Agency is synonymous with the Internal Working Model of Securely Attached People

9. Agency Generalized to Other Relationships ‘myth of separate worlds.’” (Hazan & Shaver, 1990) Relationship patterns correlate in both work and adult attachment relationships (Hazan & Shaver 1990) Relationship patterns correlate in both group and adult attachment relationships (Rom&Mikulincer 2003)

10. Implication There are developmental tasks that individuals need to work on in order to become effective in their relationships – tasks that arc across and underlie development in both attachment and general relationship realms

11. The Development of Agency in Relationships Across the Lifespan

12. 1) The Development of a Secure Base and Experiences of Secure Attachment • Secure Base and Symbolic Contact (Wallin 2007) • Lifelong elaboration of self-other mudmap, earned security • Healthy Dependency (Solomon 1994, 2009) Effective Dependency (Johnson 2003)

13. Optimal Conditions for Secure Attachment – CRADLE TO GRAVE • Prompt responsiveness to distress, Non-Intrusiveness, Interactional Synchrony, Warmth • Mid-Range Tracking of Child’s Affect (Beebe and Lachman 2002) • Contingent and Marked Mirroring • MIRRORING Intentional State • Containment – understand the cause of distress - do not join in their distress - recognise their intentional stance • Mirroring Meta-Cognitive Capacity • Intersubjectivity • Repeated cycles of attunement, misattunement, and reattunement (Schore 2008) • REPAIR –GOTTMAN and couples

14. AGENCY: The Dependence-Independence Paradox Mother-Infant Research Adolescence Research Adult Romantic Relationships

15. 2) MEETING OF NEEDS Self-In-Relation-To-Other Needs Mirroring Needs: Contingent mirroring, marked mirroring, mirroring intentional state Intersubjectivity needs Interactive affect regulation Understanding that needs must be actively sought and negotiated Meeting the needs of others

16. 3) AUTHENTICITY • The Problem Of Wanting • Regulating External Demands and Expectations • Secondary Reactive Emotions Vs Softer Expressions (Johnson, 2009)

17. 4) EQUANIMITY • The problem of anxiety • The Bowen Approach • Mentalized Affect – Jurist • Interpersonal Affect Regulation • De-escalation and Repair

18. Two paths to an AgenticSelf - continuous acts of risking separateness - experiencing self-definition through empathic attunement and mirroring by an important other

19. 5) CLARITY • Mentalizing • Comprehending the separateness of the others needs and intentions. • Family Therapy Questioning Devices, Reframing, Double Description

20. Mentalizing The act of reflecting on one’s own mental representations of self and other (and associated feelings); AND – at the same time – being able to reflect upon the other person’s mental representations, feelings, and intentions. Moreover, it involves perceiving the connection between one’s mental state and that of the other person.

21. 6) Facilitating Meta-Conversations Interlocking Vulnerabilities – Dyadic Mentalizing Real-Time Recursive Reflection Conflict Management models

22. Interlocking Vulnerabilities Explicit/Defensive Behaviour Underlying Vulnerabilities

23. IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY • The therapist is part of the attachment system – the tightrope • Self-In-Relation-To-Other – includes the actual other and the representational other • Working with more than one person. • Cognitive Interventions should focus on self-other internal representations • Emotions are given primacy and are related to self-in-relation to others constructs – mentalized affectivity

24. IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY • Six developmental tasks arc across relationship realms –progress in one context may enhance progress in another • Change is Non-Linear and Discontinuous • More Useful to Map developmental theme in Therapy than content of Therapy • Reframe difficulties as a struggle for Agency

25. CASE EXAMPLE • Norma is a 55 yrs old, grandmother. • She has been married for twenty-five years and has two adult daughters and three grandchildren. • She works in a call centre (7 months) that has quite intrusive management practices. She particularly hates the constant “performance counselling” she is subjected to by people in their early twenties who confront her regularly with graphs analysing her “outputs” • Panic attacks began two weeks ago, does not recall having panic attacks before • Has had mild claustrophobia, but now more severe, is avoiding tunnels and crowded lifts • Is taking time off work, doesn’t know how much longer her employer will tolerate it www.geofffitzgerald.com.au 0432 075 088

26. CASE EXAMPLE - OUTCOMES • Norma discussed her dread of being constantly under scrutiny. She was helped to articulate how she felt belittled and incapable, that she can’t think straight. She said she felt breathless and constrained. (Clostrophobia) • She learned techniques for asserting her boundaries with her performance managers. She learned techniques for armouring herself against unwelcome critique. • Within the first two sessions she was ruminating about both her marriage and her mother, both having a tendency to intrusively critique and micro-manage. • She learned how this self-other mud-map wasself-reinforced by her withdrawal of her opinion and acceptance of their intrusion. • Norma began to go out on her own, in spite of her husband’s implicit disapproval. About the same time she started telling the twenty-year olds that she doesn’t agree with their analysis of her work. • She starts looking for another job. www.geofffitzgerald.com.au 0432 075 088