– Discovering Security Through Individual Counseling

Last Updated on November 29, 2015 by Chris Roberts

UNDERSTANDING SECURITY AND LONGINGS IN INDIVIDUAL THERAPY IN NASHVILLE, TN

References “Attachment in Psychotherapy.” By David Wallin

We all have a deep-seated need for security and attachment.  Individual counseling in Nashville, TN seeks to help people attain these desires through the therapeutic process.  It is never an easy task, but first understanding what exactly we are looking for is a good place to start.

In previous articles about individual counseling in Nashville, Tennessee, we discussed how the theory of attachment helps people connect with the ideals of therapy and include them in a working definition of how it can help them lead more full and healthy lives.  This article will put more words to the underlying issues that mess with people’s lives and leads them to feelings of insecurity and acting out.

In a wonderful book about individual counseling as it relates to attachment theory called, “Attachment in Psychotherapy” by David Wallin, he begins this thoughtful book by outlining some of the natural longings we have as individuals in this crazy world.  Wallin, and Chris Roberts, work from a framework that people are all seeking some semblance of a secure attachment with a loved one(s), whether we can put it into specific words or not.  What is “secure attachment?”  Wallin explains, “Secure attachment is clearly associated with a reflective stance toward experience.  In Main’s (1991) account, this stance rests on the metacognitive capacity to recognize the “merely representational nature” of our own beliefs and feelings.  With such a stance, we can step back from the immediate “reality” of experience and respond in light of the mental states that might underlie it—to use Fonagy’s, we can “mentalize.  With greater freedom to mentalize, we are less likely to be inescapably gripped by emotional reflexes laid down in the course of our first relationships.” (p. 4).  This is incredibly complex language, but we will break it down into more manageable chunks.

Individual counseling is about helping people be able to slow down and step back from the sometimes overwhelming experiences of emotion and highly energetic interactions.  We are much more capable of stepping back when we realize that any interaction is infused with our past experiences and interpretations.  Oftentimes, we forget that what we feel is not synonymous with what is actually happening.  When your mother calls and asks, “Why didn’t you call your brother on his birthday” we are not simply responding to this particular question.  We are responding to years and years of our mother engaging us in this particular manner, and we interpret (usually subconsciously) all the various “intentions” that she is bringing with this question.  The question becomes: Can we step back from her question and the initial emotional reaction that we are flooded with?  In an IDEAL secure attachment with her, or with other loved ones, we don’t have to immediately respond to her based on our first or second emotional reactions.  We can step back and talk to ourselves, on our own, on our own time.   This is what is described above when Wallin states, “…we can step back from the immediate “reality” of experience and respond in light of the mental states that might underlie it.”

We can learn through individual counseling in Nashville, TN that we do not HAVE to respond or react just because it might feel so right to do so.  We may “believe” we know exactly what our mother is intending.  But knowing what our mother is doing, and having to respond out of what we believe she is doing, are two very different things.  This becomes the crux of work in individual therapy.  Even if we are perfectly right in interpreting what our loved one is doing, we are not bound to repeat the patterns of our past in responding to them.  This is where so many people get stuck, and understandably so.  The more we repeat similar cycles with loved ones, the more attached and connected we become with them.  It is good to be attached and connected!  The problem only comes in when the WAY we are attached and connected is not conducive to healthy and autonomous functioning.

Sometimes individual counseling is about helping people take the risk of believing that there could be a better and more secure attachment to a certain loved one, or another.  But to believe there is a way to be MORE securely attached, we must step back and evaluate our current reactions, and be willing to try new and different responses.  This is the risk of love.  This is the hope of life.

Chris Roberts is an individual therapist in Nashville, TN who is committed to providing honest and healthy individual counseling to those in the Nashville and surrounding area.  It always takes risk to have growth.  If you feel stuck, individual counseling in Nashville, TN could be a helpful resource to get you moving forward again.