Do you notice that some conflicts in your romantic relationships and friendships repeat themselves? Or do the conflicts arise from minor misunderstandings? Does it feel exhausting?
This is where attachment therapy, also known as attachment-based therapy, becomes relevant. If you’re looking for therapy, is this kind of intervention something that’d benefit you? Discover in this article.
What Is Attachment Therapy?
Attachment-based therapy is a form of psychotherapy grounded in attachment theory. This theory claims that the way parents interact with children teaches them about relationships in adulthood. This is especially applicable for trust, communication, nonverbal communication, and independence.
When parents were emotionally or physically abusive, it can increase the risk of attachment issues in adulthood. If you wonder whether you may have attachment issues, the easiest way to explore it is through an attachment issues quiz that also shows where they show up the most vividly in your individual case.
Attachment therapy was created to address these relational wounds. Traditional symptom-focused therapy might overlook these issues because their impact is usually very deep and hard to grasp.
Therapy designed specifically for attachment issues has a proven record of effectiveness for relationships and mental health. For example, this study found that 87% of adolescents in therapy-based therapy had less suicidal ideation than the control group who weren’t engaged in therapy.
Mental health practitioners recommend attachment-based therapy to individuals who experience repeated relationship conflicts and have trouble building long-lasting trusting relationships. It is not limited to severe trauma. It is designed for anyone who wants to build more secure connections while being sincere.
Techniques of Attachment Therapy
Attachment-based therapy is more like an approach. The central focus is the relationship between you and the therapist, but the methods depend on your request. Here are the most common ones:
- Re-parenting.
This technique focuses on satisfying the unmet needs of childhood in adulthood. There are two approaches: 1) a therapist plays the role of a secure adult who “parents” the inner child; 2) a client consciously acts as a loving parent to themselves.
- Inner child work.
It doesn’t mean bringing up traumatic past experiences, but looking deeper into who you are at the core. Usually, a real personality shows up in childhood when a child hasn’t adopted protective and survival mechanisms.
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
This type of therapy combines talking about traumatic experiences with side-to-side eye movements for stimulating positive neurological changes.
This technique helps process thoughts and emotions to “make sense” of them. Attachment-based therapy uses this technique to detach a client from their negative thinking and look at things objectively.
- Somatic awareness.
Attachment stress shows up physically in clenched jaws, pressed shoulders, and teeth grinding. Therapy may include noticing bodily sensations and relaxing physically.
- The Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) Method.
This method is based on therapeutic meditation. A client imagines a “perfect” parent who comforts them, protects, and validates. This works because the brain treats real and imagined experiences as similar. Hence, care of a visualized parent feels tangible.
- Family therapy.
After a while in personal attachment-based therapy, a therapist may offer to extend therapy to others to build strategies for effective communication.
Benefits of Attachment-Based Therapy
- Addresses root causes.
Attachment issues are the root of many mental health symptoms and other negative experiences. Low self-esteem, perfectionism, narcissistic traits, loss of interest, and more can happen due to early “programming”. It ensures that these problems won’t resurface and the roots of the client’s problems won’t trigger other unhealthy responses.
- Strengthens relationship skills.
Traditional therapy focuses on the individual first, which is definitely an important groundwork. However, sometimes it’s just not enough to feel secure in relationships. Attachment therapy focuses on that.
- Can be used with children and teenagers.
Therapy for attachment issues is often prescribed to children who show mental health symptoms. This study, published in Clinical Psychology Europe, showed that attachment-based therapy is the most effective psychological framework to strengthen caregiver-child relationships.
- It is supported by research-informed approaches.
Attachment-informed models are based on decades of clinical research on attachment theory. Combined with CBT, EMDR, or medications, it’s one of the most accessible yet effective approaches.
- Reduces stigma around problems in relationships.
The main benefit of attachment therapy is that it teaches that problems in relationships don’t define people. Even if you hurt someone, it doesn’t automatically make you a bad person. It brings you back to advocacy to be kinder to yourself and others.
Potential Cons of Attachment-Based Therapy
- It can feel emotionally intense.
Every type of therapy is demanding because it requires challenging the beliefs that used to explain the world and sometimes justified you. Moreover, exploring early trauma can bring up intense emotions like grief or anger that are hard to endure, but necessary to heal.
- Progress takes a while.
Attachment styles form for years. Shifting them takes a while similarly. Progress in attachment-based therapy is so gradual that it’s almost unattainable. At least 3 months of regular visits are required to see the accumulated effect.
- It may not be ideal for acute crises.
Because of the slow, gradual therapy process, attachment therapy cannot handle situations involving immediate risk. It also may not work for severe mental health symptoms. In such cases, a person needs to be stabilized with crisis-focused interventions.
- Finding a specialized therapist may be challenging.
The therapist-client relationship is central to this approach, so matching with a mental health professional in style or communication is a must. In big cities or with a considerable budget, finding a trained professional would be easier. Try online services for therapy search that can save you both time and money.
- It does not replace practical skill-building.
Yes, attachment-based therapy can teach how to communicate, set boundaries, nurture relationships. But it only touches on the essential skills for mental well-being, such as confidence-building and self-care.
Be sure to consider both the pros and cons of therapy for attachment issues before making a choice. It’s normal to try not to like the outcomes. The important thing is to give it a bit of time and listen to whether you genuinely enjoy the process and feel challenged.
When to Try Therapy for Attachment Issues
Not everyone who struggles in relationships needs attachment-based therapy. But if you’re interested in whether it may benefit your case, this section will help to decide.
Consider therapy for attachment issues if you notice that the same problems, conflicts, negative thoughts show up with different people. Say, you want more attention not only from your significant other, but also from colleagues or in the gym that you go to.
Many people who experience emotional dysregulation say they benefit from attachment-based therapy. Emotional dysregulation means that your emotions feel out of control. It’s hard for you to calm down, even if you know that the reaction is “too much” because of the situation.
Where attachment therapy outshines other therapy methods is the lack of trust. Lack of trust is a sign of dismissive-avoidant attachment style, where people don’t like intimacy and closeness because they value independence more. Here, this method addressed attachment issues by challenging previous beliefs and doing bits of exposure therapy.
If you don’t relate to these signs, but are currently undergoing a breakup, divorce, infidelity, loss, marriage, etc., attachment-based therapy supports you personally as well as familial relationships. Also, you can try this therapy method just because you feel like it. If there is an intuition that this therapy method will make you feel better, then why do you need to find excuses?
