Understanding attachment and the ways in which it forges the self, and continues to be alive in one’s internal and relational world in the present day, is an imperative for therapists. As a therapist educator, I spend a lot of time talking with therapists and teaching about attachment, and how to apply attachment theory to clinical practice. I have found that most therapists have a clear understanding that early relational dynamics with primary caregivers wire the self, the body and psyche, neurophysiologically (affect and physiological regulation capacity) and psychically (internal working models) in ways that typically remain active across the lifespan. However, understanding this and seeing it in action, or mentalizing how attachment dynamics, particularly insecure attachment patterning, actually happens in people’s early years and continues to be active across the lifespan (through clients out of awareness or unconscious relational dynamics), stretches many clinicians.
I often hear in consultation, “they had a good childhood“, or “there was a secure base”, yet the ensuing case presentation tells a different story ~ one rife with a typical history of neglect, non-recognition, invalidation, accommodation, etc., ~ all of which are basically the bread and butter of insecure attachment, where the child needed to meet the caregiver’s needs, or meet the caregiver on their terms, rather than on the developing infant and child’s terms. This essential need for one to be met on their own terms, to be recognized, validated, cherished, seen, heard, and valued, are hallmark challenges for caregivers with their own histories of insecure attachment, which are transmitted unconsciously through the attachment dynamics of relationship. This relational trauma, is often difficult for therapists to grasp and see it unfold in their clinical work, both in the stories of today and yesterday that clients tell, and the relational dynamics that are showcased both in and out of the therapeutic dyad.
This is where the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training comes in – over two years we translate attachment theory into clinical practice through lecture, dialogue, demonstration and debrief, and practice sessions. The SAP training is particularly sophisticated in its nuanced understanding and application of attachment, relational dynamics, and how they intersect with the body and psyche. Through the SAP training, we…
dig into the heart of how attachment is formed,
explore how attachment is transmitted through the out of awareness early relational dynamics of everyday contact and connection,
learn about the unconscious dynamics of attachment transmission in relation to caregiving, including the window of tolerance and the polyvagal,
understand and recognize the internal working model(s) of self and how they showcase in people’s lives for better or worse
learn to recognize and work with patterns associated with attachment classifications gleaned from the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
learn how to recognize attachment patterns in clinical practice in terms of relational dynamics that are present in the content of the material that clients bring to therapy,
deepen how to listen and discern dynamics from early caregiving relationships that forged the self,
learn how to listen for and track the relational dynamics that continue to be recapitulated over the lifespan, so in the relationships of today,
understand how chronic shame goes hand in hand with insecure attachment and is foundational in the development of self,
explore how to work with chronic shame dynamics that are deeply interruptive of healthy functioning,
explore therapists attachment and how that intersects with clinical practice,
and of course, we learn how to recognize and work with relational dynamics in the therapeutic relationship.
In addition to attending to the relational dynamics, the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training supports the regulation of the autonomic nervous system which is compromised with insecure attachment, and other traumas. Through this dynamic and comprehensive training, therapist capacity to understand, recognize and work with insecure attachment is advanced and solidified.
If your interest in Attachment Training is piqued, here’s a linkto more information and the next cohort dates. Hope to hear from you!
I’m in the process of closing my clinical practice—after 21 years—to make more space for my teaching practice, but also to explore new frontiers that have been calling for my attention for a while. It took my clients by surprise, and truth be told, it surprised and continues to surprise me. I love my work. I have profound and meaningful connections with the people in my practice, all of them, and some of them I have known and worked with for 17 years. That’s a long time.
As I find myself in transition, I have been reflecting on where it all started, this love that I have for therapy, for working in and with the bodyself. I have been tracking the unfolding of my evolution and understanding of how to work with and support the healing of trauma, trauma of all kinds, but specifically, the heart of my clinical and teaching practice has always been the reparation of early attachment injuries.
If we go back to the beginning, to the fall of 2001, I saw a demonstration of Somatic Experiencing. I was in my first semester of grad school. I entered grad school knowing I was interested in trauma work but had assumed I would learn and use EMDR (I never did), but I was captivated by somatic work. I don’t know that I could grasp the profundity of what I was seeing, but my body knew. I remember as I witnessed the demonstration, I had an involuntary vocalization—not a gasp, not a laugh, but some sort of bubbling forth of a knowing—this is it I thought, I need to know more. Two months later as I started my second semester of my Master’s, I started training in Dr. Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing.
For the next 12 years I was deeply immersed in the somatic world—in 2006 I began working with Dr. Sharon Stanley as she built her Somatic Transformation training program. This immersion served me well—Sharon is a gifted and generous clinician and educator, and I was fortunate to be mentored by her until the end of 2014. I had found my clinical home in the somatic world.
Homes change 😊. I began studying with Dr. Allan Schore sometime around 2010 and I stretched my clinical mind and practice: I continue to appreciate Allan’s brilliance and the vast disciplines his work traverses. During this time, I was departing more and more from my somatic roots and teachings. In 2015, I studied with Dr. Mary Main and Dr. Erik Hesse in the Adult Attachment Interview Training (AAI)—that training was significant in putting into words the relational dynamics I was working with in my practice that were replications of early relational injuries and also embedded in the body. In retrospect, it was the AAI that helped me articulate my knowing and continues to serve as foundational to my understanding of relational trauma, which is the heart of my clinical work. This created yet another home.
Fast forward to 2016 and I started my own Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy 2-year training for therapists. I had been teaching workshops for the previous twelve years but this was different. I was able to have a bigger canvas to explore and expand upon my understanding of how to work with folks that have an insecure attachment from a somatic lens. It started out as a good program, but I’m excited to say that my thinking and knowing from there has significantly shifted again and again as I leaned into relational and interpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy training beginning in 2019. This too feels like another clinical home.
I think that what’s true for me is that over my clinical career I have found many clinical homes that continue to be foundational in my clinical thinking, practice and teaching. Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy (SAP), as it stands today, is an embodied way of practicing psychotherapy oriented toward working with relational injuries (insecure attachment).
Now, SAP has evolved into an outstanding training program and community. That’s not even hard to say—I have been supported by incredible teachers, some of the most brilliant hearts and minds in the field, and I have taught hundreds of amazing therapists that continue to invite me to expand my thinking and practice. Perhaps most significantly, I have walked with incredible people in my practice over time as they, and we processed, their early wounds and they found healing. This is where the work really happens, in clinical spaces, where theory meets practice, and emergent process happens and builds new practice and theory. Kind of a spiral situation.
While there’s lots more to my story, I find myself at the next opening of the spiral. I’ve found my next teacher, it’s in a different discipline, related but outside of psychotherapy. Sometimes, when I listen to him speak, I weep…and that tells me, like that involuntary vocalization 24 years ago, follow this—see what doors open, bring your curiosity—I think there’s another home here.
