Attachment-based psychotherapy: Helping patients develop adaptive capacities.

Our early attachment experiences with our primary caregiver influence the adult that we become. These experiences forge our patterns of communication, emotional experience, intimate relationships, and way of living in the world. If our early attachments are secure, we learn to access and communicate adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. In contrast, if our early attachment experiences are insecure, we may struggle with dysregulated, maladaptive emotions and have difficulties in our intimate relationships leading to anxiety, depression, and excessive or misdirected anger. This book presents an attachment-based approach to therapy that addresses the limiting and detrimental effects of negative early attachment experiences. Attachment-based psychotherapy has two major components: establishing a security-engendering therapeutic relationship and helping the patient to communicate more openly and thus to access more adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Psychotherapists of various theoretical orientations will appreciate this book's richly detailed conceptualization of common human problems, as well as clear treatment approach for addressing these problems. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Attachment, Communication, and Affect: An Introduction I. An Attachment-Based View of Development Why Mothers Matter: The Evolution of Maternal Care The Neural Sculpting of the Self Attachment Communication Affect II. Attachment-Based Psychotherapy Defensive Exclusion and the Focus of Attachment-Based Therapy Anxiety, Depression, and Maladaptive Anger The Security-Engendering Therapeutic Relationship Deconstructing Aloneness: Helping the Patient Access and Communicate Excluded Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors References Index About the Author This book presents an attachment-based approach to therapy that addresses the limiting and detrimental effects of negative early attachment experiences. Our early attachment experiences with our primary caregiver influence the adult that we become. Attachment-based psychotherapy has two major establishing a security-engendering therapeutic relationship and helping the patient to communicate more openly and thus to access more adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Psychotherapists of various theoretical orientations will appreciate this books richly detailed conceptualization of common human problems and its clear treatment approach for addressing these problems. "This book explores in detail how our early attachment experiences with a primary caregiver affect our development into adulthood. In particular, it explores how suboptimal attachment experiences can lead to psychopathology (especially depression, anxiety, and maladaptive anger) and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Finally, it describes how psychotherapy can mitigate the detrimental effects of negative early attachment experiences"--Chapter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)