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How is attunement, disruption, and repair experienced by the therapist in an attachment-focused approach to psychotherapy?

University of British Columbia

This study explored the question: How is attunement, disruption and repair (ADR) experienced by the therapist in an attachment-focused approach to psychotherapy? The prevailing conception of ADR has emerged from a confluence of domains of inquiry: infant development research, psychotherapy, and affective neuroscience. However, it was not until recently that insights from these three areas of study converged. This convergence has created a flood of theoretical literature that conceptualizes ADR as a fundamental vehicle for change in the therapeutic relationship. However, two principal issues have been eluded: 1) there has been a lack of consensus on what constitutes attunement, disruption and repair and, 2) while ADR has been investigated extensively in infant development research and has been theorized to occur in the therapeutic relationship, there is a dearth of empirical demonstrations examining attunement, disrupton and repair as experienced by the therapist in the therapeutic process. The current research comprised a qualitative micro-analysis of the moment to moment shifts in the interactive process of ADR as experienced by the therapist. By investigating the question, “How is attunement, disruption and repair experienced by the therapist in an attachment-focused approach to psychotherapy?” the present qualitative study filled in a significant gap in the literature, contributed to our knowledge of the construct and the role of attunement, disruption and repair in the therapeutic process, informed existing theory on affect regulation and attachment repair, and informed the change process in therapy.

Text

2017-10-18

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/63347

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/