– Individual Counseling Through the Attachment Lens

Last Updated on May 15, 2018 by Chris Roberts

USING ATTACHMENT THEORY IN INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN

References “Attachment in Psychotherapy.” By David Wallin

In a previous article about individual counseling in Nashville, TN, we discussed what individual counseling is and how it works from a very broad basis.   There exists many different approaches and theories for addressing the work of individual counseling.  Many counselors use an eclectic mix of many different theories of counseling, and are not bound to one particular theorist or foundation.

At Two Trees Counseling in Nashville, TN, Chris Roberts uses a variety of approaches when working with individuals in counseling, but underlying most of these theories, Chris uses Attachment Theory as a core foundation of helping people.   In terms of human evolution, attachment theory is a relatively new concept, first conceived by John Bowlby in the 1980’s.  Attachment theory is not in opposition to Freud’s fundamental basis of understanding people, but it does stress a more relational function to determining how and why people do the things that they do.  In this well written book about attachment theory by David Wallin, entitled, “Attachment in Psychotherapy,” he references Bowlby often and appears to do more of a summarizing work, rather than espouse completely new ideas.  Wallin summarizes the core of attachment theory when he writes, “Overall, the relational/emotional/reflective process at the heart of attachment-focused therapy facilitates the integration of disowned experience, thus fostering in the patient a more coherent and secure sense of self.” (p. 3)  This is somewhat complicated language, and we will seek to unpack it in this article.

At the end of the day, individual counseling is simply about helping people live more full and healthy lives.  It’s a very simple goal.  The difficulty is finding ways to connect with people when they are in fragile and harmful states of living life.  Most people come to individual counseling because there is a crisis or some other major part of their life is just not working well anymore.  To tell a person who is in this upsetting and fragile place that your goal as a therapist is to help them feel better and live a healthier life is like asking a person if they would like an extra million dollars in their bank account.  Of course!  This is great.  Who wouldn’t want this?  The trouble comes in trying to communicate just HOW this is going to take place.

As in individual counselor in Nashville, TN, I believe that attachment theory provides a solid foundation from which to connect with any person, in regular language, and help them understand what will happen in therapy and what they can do to help themselves move forward.  Basically, attachment theory espouses that all of the bad things that happened to us as young children became systematically (automatically, in a sense) blocked out of our conscious world.  “Bad things” is such a broad term, and unfortunately, “bad things” encompasses an incredibly large amount of experiences.  For the time being, let’s not consider the really dramatic things such as rape, abandonment, and physical or sexual abuse.  “Bad things” to a child can be as simple as looking up at your parent while you are playing and not having them look back, or having them look back in disapproval at what you are doing.  It really can be as simple as this.  And as a relief to any parents reading this article: Yes, you are going to “harm” your children in this way often and repeatedly.  That is just the point.  We are all “harmed” as children.  Especially as preverbal children when a child can’t say, “Hey, look at me down here.  I’m trying to show you something important!”

Individual counseling becomes about helping people put words to the wordless events that happened so long ago in their infancy and youth.  It is exactly what Wallin describes above when he says, “integration of the disowned experience.”  What happens to a child when she repeatedly looks to her mother for approval or acceptance and doesn’t receive an accepting glance back from mother, is that the child begins to no longer look to her mother for this feedback.   The child “automatically” learns that this form of “attaching” to her mother doesn’t work.  At this point, the child doesn’t particulary feel anger or disappointment.  But the child does begin to solidify a way of looking for attachment with her mother.  Some children will throw a bigger and bigger fit in order to get the attention they crave and NEED from their mother.  Other children will learn to ignore their own impulses for connection and work tirelessly to avoid these feelings.

In either case, individual counseling is about working with clients to understand better their patterns for how they attach and connect with their loved ones.  Often, individual counseling is not about changing how they attach to the people they love.  Instead, individual therapy becomes about helping the person be able to predict how they will react to certain actions from those they love.

If you are looking for individual counseling in Nashville, TN, Chris Roberts could be of help to you, or a resource for your needs.  Chris Roberts is an individual therapist in Nashville, TN who works with any and all people looking to live a healthier and more enjoyable life.