Attachment, Resilience and Agency

The Concurrent Development of the Individual and of their Attachment

Relationships

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

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

Improvements in Attachment Relationships Result in Improved Individual WellbeingStudies showing improved marital satisfaction results in improvements in

depression (Leff et,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. (Tasca et,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).

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.

I.W.M.

AGENCYBanduraAgency Vs CommunionAgency Vs DeterminismAgency Vs Control, Resilience

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

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

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)

ImplicationThere 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

The Development of Agency in Relationships

Across the Lifespan

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)

Prompt responsiveness to distress, Non-Intrusiveness, Interactional Synchrony, Warmth

Mid-Range Tracking of Child’s Affect (Beebe and Lachman 2002)Contingent and Marked MirroringMIRRORING Intentional StateContainment – 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

Optimal Conditions for Secure Attachment – CRADLE TO GRAVE

AGENCY: The Dependence-Independence Paradox

Mother-Infant Research

Adolescence Research

Adult Romantic Relationships

2) MEETING OF NEEDS

Self-In-Relation-To-Other Needs

Mirroring Needs: Contingent mirroring, marked mirroring, mirroring intentional state Intersubjectivity needsInteractive affect regulation

Understanding that needs must be actively sought and negotiated

Meeting the needs of others

3) AUTHENTICITY

The Problem Of WantingRegulating External Demands and Expectations

Secondary Reactive Emotions Vs Softer Expressions (Johnson, 2009)

4) EQUANIMITYThe problem of anxietyThe Bowen ApproachMentalized Affect – Jurist

Interpersonal Affect Regulation

De-escalation and Repair

Two paths to an Agentic Self

- continuous acts of risking separateness

- experiencing self-definition through empathic attunement and mirroring by an important other

5) CLARITYMentalizingComprehending the separateness of the others needs and intentions.

Family Therapy Questioning Devices, Reframing, Double Description

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.

Mentalizing

6) Facilitating Meta-Conversations

Interlocking Vulnerabilities – Dyadic Mentalizing

Real-Time Recursive Reflection

Conflict Management models

Interlocking Vulnerabilities

Explicit/Defensive Behaviour

Underlying Vulnerabilities

IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPYThe therapist is part of the attachment

system – the tightropeSelf-In-Relation-To-Other – includes the

actual other and the representational otherWorking with more than one person.Cognitive Interventions should focus on

self-other internal representationsEmotions are given primacy and are

related to self-in-relation to others constructs – mentalized affectivity

IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPYSix developmental tasks arc across

relationship realms –progress in one context may enhance progress in another

Change is Non-Linear and DiscontinuousMore Useful to Map developmental theme

in Therapy than content of TherapyReframe difficulties as a struggle for

Agency

www.geofffitzgerald.com.au 0432 075 088

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

CASE EXAMPLE

www.geofffitzgerald.com.au 0432 075 088

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 was self-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.

CASE EXAMPLE - OUTCOMES