We had a discussion in therapy today about progress...specifically, about what you can change and what you can't.
It started when somebody asked if we were ever worried about falling back into the worst of it. Lots of folks talked about new ways they have of noticing when they're falling into bad patterns, and how they hope to keep themselves out of the kinds of situations and worst-case-scenarios where they feel like they'd go back to the worst of their feared patterns.
We went into really hard-to-deal-with-patterns. Then we slid into talking about what you can change and what you can't.
The idea of not being able to change things & patterns was scary. It sounds like some of what I worry about the most: that I'm broken or sullied or scarred forever or whatnot.
Wynne,
I deeply believe that it is possible to change your patterns of behavior, it's just difficult work because you have to in effect "re-wire" your brain. And because so many of these patterns play out on a non-verbal level and are unconscious, it takes being in a relationship with someone who can help you see what you're doing and not aware of. I'm reading a really good book on Attachment right now called, appropriately enough
, "Attachment in Psychotherapy" by David Wallin which talks about what we've learned about attachment and applies it to healing someone in a clincial setting. The brain never loses its plasticity. What you learned as a child is NOT a life sentence. Do not despair, your past is not the definition of either who you are, or what you will become.
There's some quotes from the book I'll post later when I have the time about this subject, but I didn't want to let it go to long without answering.
You are not broken, or sullied. There may possibly be some scars, but scars are a sign of healing. That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger. And postpones the inevitable.
AG
I deeply believe that it is possible to change your patterns of behavior, it's just difficult work because you have to in effect "re-wire" your brain. And because so many of these patterns play out on a non-verbal level and are unconscious, it takes being in a relationship with someone who can help you see what you're doing and not aware of. I'm reading a really good book on Attachment right now called, appropriately enough
, "Attachment in Psychotherapy" by David Wallin which talks about what we've learned about attachment and applies it to healing someone in a clincial setting. The brain never loses its plasticity. What you learned as a child is NOT a life sentence. Do not despair, your past is not the definition of either who you are, or what you will become. There's some quotes from the book I'll post later when I have the time about this subject, but I didn't want to let it go to long without answering.
You are not broken, or sullied. There may possibly be some scars, but scars are a sign of healing. That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger. And postpones the inevitable.
AG
Hi Wynne,
Sorry it's taken so long to post this stuff; crazy week, volleyball season has started.
The following excerpts are from the hardback edition of Attachment in Psychotherapy by David J Wallin. This is written by a professional for professionals and I will confess that it can be pretty heavy going at times, but there's also been an incredible wealth of information. It has described a lot of what I have seen play out in my work with my T. I just wanted to post a few quotes about our ability to change.
And last, but not least:
So, bottom line, who we are and how we behave is set down at a very young age and deeply influences our behaviors and relationships. But if we didn't receive what we needed then to develop a healthy, secure, internal sense of security, its not too late. We can, through forming a new secure attachment, accomplish the development now. And internalizing a secure base actually changes who we are and our ability to react to our experiences. It's never too late; your brain structure, your sense of yourself are NOT cast in concrete. I'm not saying its not difficult, painful and a lot of hard work; but knowing that its possible is more than half the battle. We do not strive in vain.
AG
Sorry it's taken so long to post this stuff; crazy week, volleyball season has started.
The following excerpts are from the hardback edition of Attachment in Psychotherapy by David J Wallin. This is written by a professional for professionals and I will confess that it can be pretty heavy going at times, but there's also been an incredible wealth of information. It has described a lot of what I have seen play out in my work with my T. I just wanted to post a few quotes about our ability to change.
quote:In the world according to Bowlby, our lives, from the cradle to the grave, revolve around intimate attachments. Although our stance toward such attachments is shaped most influentially by our first relationships, we are also mallable. If our early involvements have been problematic, then subsequent relationships can offer second chances, perhaps affording us the potential to love, feel, and reflect with the freedom that flows from secure attachment. Psychotherapy, at its best, provides just such a healing relationship. Pg. 1
quote:Pg 2 - 3. The same three themes organize the model of therapy as transformation though relationship. In this model, the patient's attachment relationship to the therapist is foundational and primary. It supplies the secure base that is the sine qua non for exploration, development, and change. This sense of a secure base arises from the attuned therapist's effectiveness in helping the patient to tolerate, modulate, and communicate difficult feelings. By virtue of the felt security generated through such affect-regulating interactions, the therapeutic relationship can provide a context for accessing disavowed or dissocaited experiences within the patient that have not--and perhaps cannot--be put into words. the relationship is also a context within which the therapist and patient, havingmade room for these experiences, can attempt to make sense of them. Acessing, articulating, and reflecting ypon dissociated and unverbalized feelings, thoughts, and impulses strengthen the patient's "narrative competence" (Holmes, 1996) and help to shift in a more reflective direction the patients' stance toward experience. Overall, the relational/emotional/reflective process at the heart of an attachment-focused therapy facilitates the integration of disowned experience, thus fostering in the patient a more coherent and secure sense of self.
Very much as the original attachment relationsip(s) allowed the child to develop, it it ultimately the new relationship of attachment with the therapist that allows the patient to change [Emphasis mine]. To paraphrase Bowlby (1988), such a relationship provides a secure base that enables the patient both to deconstruct the attachment patterns of the past and to construct new ones in the present. As we have seen, the patterns played out in our first attachments are reflected subsequently not only in the ways we relate to others, but also in your habits of feeling and thinking. Correspondingly, the patient's relationship with the therapist has the potential to generate fresh patterns of affect regulation and thought, as well as attachment. Put differently, the theraputic relationship is a developmental crucible within which the patient's relation to his own experience of internal and external reality can be fundamentally transformed.
And last, but not least:
quote:Secure attachment relationships in childhood and psychotherapy help develop this reassuring internal presence by presence by providing us with experiences of being recognized, understood, and cared for that can subsequently be internalized.
So, bottom line, who we are and how we behave is set down at a very young age and deeply influences our behaviors and relationships. But if we didn't receive what we needed then to develop a healthy, secure, internal sense of security, its not too late. We can, through forming a new secure attachment, accomplish the development now. And internalizing a secure base actually changes who we are and our ability to react to our experiences. It's never too late; your brain structure, your sense of yourself are NOT cast in concrete. I'm not saying its not difficult, painful and a lot of hard work; but knowing that its possible is more than half the battle. We do not strive in vain.
AG
Thank you AG for writing all of this out and for selecting these passages. I know someone who will benefit from reading this. 
I agree that this is a fabulous book that gives a lot of insight into what the book is titled: Attachment in Psychotherapy.
TN
I agree that this is a fabulous book that gives a lot of insight into what the book is titled: Attachment in Psychotherapy.TN
quote:Secure attachment relationships in childhood and psychotherapy help develop this reassuring internal presence by presence by providing us with experiences of being recognized, understood, and cared for that can subsequently be internalized.
This statement scares me as I never did develope secure relationships in my child. For 3 years I was away from home every winter living in other peoples homes. During that time I was on my own. No family, no friends.
I pretty much internalized everything, even my feelings of loneliness. I never did show emotions, as I felt I was not allowed.
Makes the uphill battle seem awfully tough
Kats
Kats...don't let this statement scare you. What you will internalize through psychotherapy is your T's reassurances and the experience of being heard and cared for. This is all good. The psychotherapy seeks to replace the things like the lonliness and feelings of isolation and fear of being dependent that we have internalized instead of the good stuff. I'm not saying it's not an uphill battle ... because I've been struggling up the hill myself, but I think the end result (if we stick with it) will make it worthwhile.
TN
TN
AG,
Many thanks for the excerpts. I've been thinking about them and the topic of the role of individual therapy in my life for a bit now, 'cause the sessions with Tfella are up and it's time for me to probably be transitioning to seeing someone in the community - or not. And since I'm in group therapy as it is, I had to figure out what individual therapy gave that group didn't - or, if it didn't give anything different, if I even needed to try to find another T.
I have decided to start looking, and asked Tfella for referrals, in large part because of this whole phenomenon that you're talking about. Group just doesn't have that kind of attachment, not with the Ts or the other members. I _do_ get things in group that I would never get in individual therapy - advice, support about making good choices, feedback about how other people really see me - that I don't get in individual therapy.
Lots to think about.
Many thanks for the excerpts. I've been thinking about them and the topic of the role of individual therapy in my life for a bit now, 'cause the sessions with Tfella are up and it's time for me to probably be transitioning to seeing someone in the community - or not. And since I'm in group therapy as it is, I had to figure out what individual therapy gave that group didn't - or, if it didn't give anything different, if I even needed to try to find another T.
I have decided to start looking, and asked Tfella for referrals, in large part because of this whole phenomenon that you're talking about. Group just doesn't have that kind of attachment, not with the Ts or the other members. I _do_ get things in group that I would never get in individual therapy - advice, support about making good choices, feedback about how other people really see me - that I don't get in individual therapy.
Lots to think about.