Repairing Attachment Wounds through AF-EMDR
Cognitive-behavioral therapy trains individuals to observe and modify their thoughts and behaviors, and the earlier-developed Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy includes methods to calm anxiety. Yet none of these approaches were working well for me. The Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) developed in 2008 by the clinical psychologist and founder of the Parnell Institute Laurel Parnell, combines traditional EMDR with attachment theory — by first treating trauma itself and then building new resources for healing, growth, and better relationships to offset the withdrawal from relationships that often ensues from a traumatic experience.
Understanding Attachment Theory
These immediately set up our development for life, and determine whether we develop one of four attachment styles:
1. Secure
2. Avoidant/ambivalent
3. Disorganized/insecure
4. Anxious/avoidant
5. Fearful
6. Preoccupied
Trauma is a crack in the pattern-making empathy that underlies attachment; a rupture in the fabric of trust Therapists rely on attachment theory to study and interpret the trauma: how a dysfunctional childhood shapes lifelong difficulties, and how early and sustained caregiving mindfully optimizes health and vibrancy.
Secure: Consistent comfort and safety from caregivers
Anxious: Inconsistent care leading to worried, insecure patterns
Avoidant: Self-reliance due to unreliable caregiving
Disorganized: A mix of anxious and avoidant styles
This insecure attachment, the theory goes, can lead to issues such as depression, PTSD, anxiety, low self-esteem, and relationship difficulties, which can be treated by developing a therapeutic relationship and changing these patterns with AF-EMDR and other, attachment-based therapies.
How EMDR Works
The use of bilateral stimulation (BLS) in EMDR is designed to help the client process trauma memories. BLS methods include eye movements, alternating sounds, or tactile stimulation, all believed to help improve communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, much like REM sleep. During EMDR, the client revisits trauma memories while undergoing the BLS, which allows for rapid processing and a decrease in distress.
Principles of AF-EMDR
AF-EMDR addresses these limitations through five core principles:
1 Client safety
2. Importance of the therapeutic relationship
3. Client-centered practice
4. Repairing deficits
5. Modified EMDR techniques
Unique Aspects of AF-EMDR
In AF-EMDR, adult clients are guided to reimagine idealized versions of situations that were lacking in their childhoods, to overcome wounds and fill gaps, all of which can be stored in the mind’s eye to serve as a resource for further self-healing.
AF-EMDR not only uses imagination and visualization to process the early attachment wound but it incorporates bilateral stimulation through eye movements. The treatment process organizes a multitude of target issues into a series of workable parts:
1. The client is instructed to think of a scene in which she felt scared or unprotected by her mother/father/caregiver.
2. The client then imagines a self-protective figure or action to help herself feel safe.
3. While remaining connected to the imagined self-protection, the client does a series of eye movements or taps.
4. Once the bilateral stimulations are completed, the client is instructed to once more attend to the self-protective image.
Identifying the Gap:
The therapist and client identify one or more specific ways that the client did not have adequate bonding or nurturing in the early years. Was there no loving father figure around? Or was his caregiver too unavailable or even too cold? Did the home environment not feel safe?
Creating the Ideal:
After the deficit has been identified, the client is then asked to imagine what an ideal caregiver or situation would have looked like in great detail. For example, if there was missing nurturing from a father figure, one might be asked:
The father's physical appearance
His personality traits (e.g., kind, patient, supportive)
How he would speak and interact with the client as a child
Specific scenarios where his presence would have been meaningful
Engaging Multiple Senses:
The therapist encourages the client to participate as many of the senses as possible in the visualization: The sound of the ideal father's voice. The feeling of a comforting hug. The smell of his cologne or her perfume. Visual details of shared activities or moments
Bilateral Stimulation:
As the client holds these images and sensations in mind, the therapist initiates bilateral stimulation — eye movements, alternating tones, or hand-held tactile stimulation. It’s as if the BLS facilitates ‘tuning in’ so these new, more positive associations can take root and form or reinforce new neural pathways.
Revisiting Key Moments:
The client is then invited to return to a particular moment or stage in life in which the presence of that ideal ally would have been especially meaningful, and to imagine: How the ideal caregiver would have responded. The emotional support they would have received. How it would have felt to have that support.
Again, BLS is used to reinforce these new, positive associations.
Integrating New Experiences:
Over the series of sessions, the imagined positive experiences become more and more real, and eventually available in the mind of the client. The new neural networks created in this process start to override the top-down connectivity and emotional and psychical holes that remained from the original deficits.
Building Internal Resources:
The longer that the road of change moves forward, the more these idealized attachment figures and the security they offer become an enduring part of the internal landscape, providing internal resources that the client can turn to for soothing, guidance, and support in their everyday lives.
Alleviating Sense of Defectiveness:
As these idealized scenarios are rehearsed over and over again, the client’s sense of personal inadequacy, unworthiness, or ‘brokenness’, often stemming from early attachment injuries, can be diminished too. The feeling of having been robbed of nurturing that was due to them is replaced by the image of having received it, even if vicariously.
Ongoing Self-Healing:
Clients are encouraged to keep touching and stretching and rocking away from these figurative, comforting images of idealized caregivers even when they’re outside of the session. Keeping these arms open, patting, rubbing, and massaging between sessions reinforces the new neural circuitry, they say and serves as a comforting source of self-soothing in times of stress.
Attachment-focused EMDR offers itself as a powerful set of tools for healing even the most profound attachment injuries and trauma. By (re)parenting and repairing internal connections, according to the clinician’s inner guide towards love and attachment, an alter ego learning experience offers clients the chance to write and rewrite – with positive experiences – the blank book of their history.
While these wounds are challenging to heal, you can change them at any age because of the brain’s neuroplasticity. If you’ve been troubled by early attachment issues or relational trauma and are curious about AF-EMDR as a tool to engage in your healing, reach out to a clinician today.
Remember, asking for help is strength. It takes patience, commitment, and the helping skills of others but, if you can develop secure attachments and inner resources, you will have the basis of emotional health and satisfying relationships. The past influences you, but it needn’t determine your future.
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