Secure Attachment through Transference
Transference is a well-known dynamic in therapeutic situations where the patient transfers feelings (largely unconscious) from past interactions or experiences onto the therapist.
In Mentalization Therapy, this transference is utilized as a tool to build a relationship of trust with the person having BPD, so as to provide that "secure attachment" missing in the person's childhood development.
The therapist creates a positive open nonjudging environment permitting the patient with BPD to develop trust and a safe attachment.
This is an important first step in the treatment of BPD.
Reflections on Secure Attachment through Therapy
I can very much relate to the need I have had for the development of secure attachment in a therapeutic environment. So often, I have wished I had someone with whom I could speak on a regular basis, regarding what was going on inside me. Someone trained to help me process these feelings and experiences.
However, so often in my experience, when I have gone for help; I felt the therapist didn't truly understand what was going on with me. Or, I didn't feel comfortable enough to be honest about my internal dialogue. The therapist tended to look for immediate, episodic reasons for my "take on life".
Add to this, the tendency of nearly every therapeutic situation I have been in, to limit the number of sessions I was allowed (by policy)...my devastation and sense of abandonment when therapy ended is completely understandable.
The one secure place I had tried to develop, to be honest and reveal myself was no more, and I was no further ahead in terms of treatment. I have so often walked away feeling I was given a band aid to treat a gaping wound. That I was alone and no one would ever understand me. Hopeless.
I am so incredibly grateful that the one-on-one therapist I am currently seeing has somehow overcome this limitation in the number of sessions we can have and the continuity of treatment. She also is willing to explore my background experiences and history, and doesn't see what is currently happening in my life as episodic; but rather, as a life long pattern of behaviour and response which we can examine: In terms of real causes that have impacted and formed me. In terms of possible ways of rethinking and reprocessing what happened to me with my "adult" mind.
I believe it is only through the possibility of long-term, on going therapy, will I begin to develop the ability to "see" myself and what I am doing clearly enough to change it. In a secure attachment therapeutic environment.
If I can develop trust with my therapist, perhaps that can extend, eventually, to others.
Having the very clear relationship graphic visuals provided by Bateman and Fogany (which I have reproduced in this blog) help me see how I have been operating in the world and why that doesn't work. I clearly understand now, why I haven't been able to connect or succeed at life, and the origin of the horrible incapacitating feelings from which I have suffered.
Transference is a well-known dynamic in therapeutic situations where the patient transfers feelings (largely unconscious) from past interactions or experiences onto the therapist.
In Mentalization Therapy, this transference is utilized as a tool to build a relationship of trust with the person having BPD, so as to provide that "secure attachment" missing in the person's childhood development.
The therapist creates a positive open nonjudging environment permitting the patient with BPD to develop trust and a safe attachment.
This is an important first step in the treatment of BPD.
Reflections on Secure Attachment through Therapy
I can very much relate to the need I have had for the development of secure attachment in a therapeutic environment. So often, I have wished I had someone with whom I could speak on a regular basis, regarding what was going on inside me. Someone trained to help me process these feelings and experiences.
However, so often in my experience, when I have gone for help; I felt the therapist didn't truly understand what was going on with me. Or, I didn't feel comfortable enough to be honest about my internal dialogue. The therapist tended to look for immediate, episodic reasons for my "take on life".
Add to this, the tendency of nearly every therapeutic situation I have been in, to limit the number of sessions I was allowed (by policy)...my devastation and sense of abandonment when therapy ended is completely understandable.
The one secure place I had tried to develop, to be honest and reveal myself was no more, and I was no further ahead in terms of treatment. I have so often walked away feeling I was given a band aid to treat a gaping wound. That I was alone and no one would ever understand me. Hopeless.
I am so incredibly grateful that the one-on-one therapist I am currently seeing has somehow overcome this limitation in the number of sessions we can have and the continuity of treatment. She also is willing to explore my background experiences and history, and doesn't see what is currently happening in my life as episodic; but rather, as a life long pattern of behaviour and response which we can examine: In terms of real causes that have impacted and formed me. In terms of possible ways of rethinking and reprocessing what happened to me with my "adult" mind.
I believe it is only through the possibility of long-term, on going therapy, will I begin to develop the ability to "see" myself and what I am doing clearly enough to change it. In a secure attachment therapeutic environment.
If I can develop trust with my therapist, perhaps that can extend, eventually, to others.
Having the very clear relationship graphic visuals provided by Bateman and Fogany (which I have reproduced in this blog) help me see how I have been operating in the world and why that doesn't work. I clearly understand now, why I haven't been able to connect or succeed at life, and the origin of the horrible incapacitating feelings from which I have suffered.
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