Co-creating secure attachment imagery to enhance relational healing

Abstract

All treatments for adult attachment insecurity include in some form a set of principles and methods that can be termed therapist-as-good-attachment-figure. This relational context is widely and appropriately accepted as a foundation for any attachment-focused therapy. After highlighting some of the principles of this approach, this article describes a therapeutic model that includes using patient-and-therapist co-created imagery of positive attachment experience. This imagery method is intrapersonal, in that it focuses on the patient's inner experience of mental representations of attachment relationships; it is interpersonal, in that the process calls upon the therapist to be highly attuned and responsive — as a good attachment figure — to the patient experiencing the imagery; and it is metainterpersonal, in that the patient experiences the imagined interaction with the positive attachment relationships in the context of the therapist supporting and participating in the process. The use of imagery in this way can be a valuable contribution towards relational healing and adult earned secure attachment.