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Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for me?
I just finished Loves Executioner by Yalom and HOw we Heal and Grow by Jeffery Smith, and I loved them both.
I would love to read something that explains more about therapy and how it works but also, in particular about attachment and its healing in adults. I find most of the info is about attachment disorder in children.
Any ideas please let me know!
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Thank you for asking about this Liffey.
And thank you True North and attachment girl for recommending books.

I have read a lot about attachment, but it has all been about the importance of attachment when we are children. Not about what you should do if your attachment went wrong. I didn´t know there were books about attachment in therapy, seems like most practitioners here in my country look at it as something wrong. So reading book from the ones that believe attachment can actually help people in becoming whole is something I didn´t know existed. It has just been you here on this site who have helped me believe I could have a second change, and do my first successful real close attachment with a therapist.

When I saw this post I looked up the book True north recommended on Amazon. I read the first few words „ ... the therapist´s role is analogous to that of a mother who provides her child with a secure base from which to explore the world.“

When I read it I felt really strange feelings, don´t know what they are, it was almost like I became shy... how could Bowlby know, how could he know that´s exactly how I feel right now towards T.
I read some more from the same page, and it was so reassuring, it helped me believe that all this time I was right. I can have a second change. This is what I need right now I need my attachment with T to become whole.
"If our early involvements have been problematic, then subsequent relationships can offer second changes, perhaps affording us the potential to love, feel, and reflect with the freedom that flows from secure attachment. Psychotherapy, at its best, provides just such a healing relationship"

It makes me feel so strange reading this, something I knew from within me was true all along. I have often doubted if I was right, if this was really possible, sometimes I have thought I was really crazy feeling what I feel.

My feelings were right all along, sometimes I´m too much in my head, and my head has told me many times my feelings were wrong.
I am a littlebit scared of reading books about attachment in therapy, something says I shouldn´t. Don´t know what it is.
But this has truly helped me a lot, thank you all again and thank you Attachment girl for your good description of the books you recomend

Last edited by Littleme
Hi Liffey,

The book that has helped me understand attachment is Changes that Heal by Dr. Henry Cloud. The book has four main sections:

1. Learn how to bond and attach to be able to internalize love
2. Learn how to to separate and make boundaries
3. Integrating the good and bad
4. Becoming an adult

One of the most helpful things in the book is a list of distorted thoughts that prevent us from bonding. Another is where the author says, “There must be an internal bonding for one to be able to establish boundaries. Without it, boundaries as they were meant to be cannot exist. It is limits without love, and that is hell. If someone cannot attach, then separateness has no meaning. Attachment gives us the safety and the strength to separate.” This was probably one of the most validating statements in the book for what I was experiencing in therapy. I also learned what healthy interconnectedness looks like and what things I needed to take ownership of.

I highly recommend the book. I feel like it explains the symptoms of attachment injury, explained roadblocks, and gave practical steps to take to take towards healing. I love all his illustrations of his patients because I could relate to many of them. I did want to mention that it comes from a faith-based perspective, so it might not suit everyone.

Hope this helps!
PF

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