Systemic Therapy and Attachment Narratives

Applications in a Range of Clinical Settings

Rudi Dallos, Arlene Vetere

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000480405
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Systemic Therapy and Attachment Narratives explores how attachment-based ideas can be used in clinical practice by offering a practical and sophisticated exposition of clinical approaches.

This new edition offers an updated overview of the integrations of attachment, systemic and narrative theory, and practice incorporating key developments in developmental trauma, intergenerational trauma and neuroscience of the emotional brain. It shows how early emotional experiences set the tone of the narratives we develop about our lives and how these in turn shape our emotional connections. This edition is more oriented towards activities and features more visual representations of problematic patterns of interaction, showing their significance for the family members. It also uses clinical examples to provide guidance on using attachment narrative therapy in different clinical contexts and with various client groups.

The book provides practical guidance for a range of mental health professionals including family therapists, child, adolescent and adult psychotherapists, clinical psychologists and social workers, enabling them to apply this approach in a range of contexts.

Chapter 1Attachment, family systems and narratives

DOI: 10.4324/9781003080152-2

The approach we describe in this book draws on the attachment narrative therapy (ANT) model described in a previous book by Dallos (2006a) and Dallos and Vetere (2014) which details how concepts from attachment theory, systemic theory and practice and narrative theory and therapies can be brought together in ways that offer some potential for extensions of each of the three approaches. Although offering some new ways of thinking about work with families, we want to emphasise that ANT and the developments and applications described in this book are not offered as a new set of ‘techniques.’ Instead, we offer a framework with some new ways of seeing what we already do – an alternative lens with which to look at systemic and narrative therapies. To take a few examples, we think that externalising and discussing unique outcomes is effective not just, or even predominantly, because it helps to challenge problem-saturated stories but because it helps to create a sense of acceptance, safety and a secure base with and for families. Tracking circularities may be helpful not just because it fosters developing different interactional processes but also because it fosters a sense of hopefulness in the ability to change relational patterns and awareness of different narratives and the elaboration of narratives held by family members about the patterns of their relationships. We will attempt to show with many examples how interactional patterns, narratives and attachment dynamics are interconnected and mutually complementary.

Attachment theory as initially conceptualised by Bowlby (1969) was an integrative theory which drew on systems theory, evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive neuroscience and object relations theory. Further, he was interested in cultural factors and his early research with Mary Ainsworth was conducted in various differing cultural contexts, for example the USA and Uganda. He employed systems theory to formulate how the attachment system operated like a self-corrective system based on homeostasis such that the emotional climate between the child and parent did not stray too far from comfortable limits. He added that in fact it was more like a servo-mechanism since the setting of this relationship changed as the child developed in order to allow greater independence and exploration. Attachment theory was in this way from its conception a theory of developmentally based adaptation based on processes of feedback. This is very sympathetic to the ideas that have propelled the development of the systemic family therapies (Dallos & Draper, 2015). Despite this focus on adaptation, attachment theory has come to be seen and arguably used in a somewhat deterministic way to suggest that we become hostage to the long-standing influence of our early experiences – the formative first years. Crittenden (1997) has suggested a more flexible and dynamically adaptive developmental extension of attachment theory which has influenced our development of ANT.

Bowlby (1969) had from the start argued that attachment experiences become represented as Internal Working Models about ourselves, our family members and our relationships. A major inspiration for our model was ignited by the turn to a narrative perspective in attachment theory, which was promoted by the work of George et al. (1996). The development of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and its associated form of discourse analysis opened a window into a detailed exploration of the narratives that we come to develop about the early experiences in our life (George et al., 1996), and in particular those that relate to safety, danger and protection. The findings from using this interview suggest that people construct complex stories about the events that have happened but importantly differ in the ways that they talk about important events. Some stories are told in ways that strip out emotional content and minimise dangers whilst others can be just the opposite. Furthermore, people differ in the extent they see themselves as agents or as observers of their lives and in their abilities to reflect on their own and other’s actions and intentions. This also connected with the findings of narrative researchers, such as McAdams (1993), who described how our ‘narrative tone’ connects with our early attachment experiences. For example, whether the story we tell about our life features a sense of hopefulness and the ability to overcome adversities connects with our early experiences of security, in contrast to stories which feature defeat, failure and tragedy connecting to insecure and unsafe childhood experiences. Further he describes the ‘defended’ aspects of our stories: not just what was present in a story but that which was absent. These developments offered an exciting integration of concepts from attachment and narrative theories alongside the potential for therapeutic practice. In effect attachment experiences are the soil from which our life stories start to develop and take on a different tone. These stories in turn do not just describe our lives but construct them in shaping what we likely and possibly in the future will think, feel and do.

This offered an important development not only of attachment theory but also of narrative theory. Below we offer an example from a young woman talking about her childhood and how it has influenced her outlook on her life.

Same facts – different stories

Alice, a young woman who was concerned that her 5-year-old son might be displaying indications of autism, came to see us for advice. She was concerned to understand whether some of the difficulties that she had experienced, for example a difficult divorce with her child’s father, might have been related to what she perceived as her child’s difficulties in communicating. In turn she was eager to tell us how these recent difficulties were in turn related to her earlier childhood and how both of these might be impacting on her and her son (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Attachment styles and narratives

FACTS: My parents were religious… offered little guidance in my childhood… I left the father of my child because he was violent.. I had no money for some time… my parents bought me a small house, but it was not in a good condition.. I paid them rent.
DISMISSIVE	PREOCCUPIED
My parents were religious and held a view that prayer rather than talking about problems was the best solution for difficulties (laugh). My father had a demanding job as a vicar and his parishioners put a lot of demands on him so I think I was a bit of a handful – talking about my problems was hard for them. Though they were poor they looked after me and bought me a house, which was a bit dilapidated (laugh). They asked for a bit of rent because they could not really afford it.	My parents never offered me any guidance and said they would be supportive but actually they didn’t do anything to help. After the divorce I had to go bankrupt, and my parents bought a house for me but with no hot water and we didn’t have heating – it was absolutely shocking. It wasn’t anything fit for habitation. They were taking the rent every month but not doing the repairs. My sister and I had absolutely no boundaries at any point. It was up to us to make our own mistakes and to learn from them…. Never any advice or guidance..

Alice outlined a number of ‘facts’ about her past, important events that had occurred: her parents were religious… offered little guidance in my childhood… I left the father of my child because he was violent… I had no money for some time… my parents bought me a small house, but it was not in a good condition.. I paid them rent.

As RD listened, he felt angry on her behalf. She told the story in a manner of her having been a victim of her parents’ emotional neglect, their self-centred view and inability to offer her any guidance. It is often hard not to feel aggrieved on behalf of people who tell us such a story. However, after many years of listening to people’s stories and looking at AAI interviews we have noticed that the same ‘facts’(which in themselves constitute a selection from all the events that have happened) may be told in differing ways. In particular a narrative attachment perspective suggests two predominant narrative styles or tone: dismissing or preoccupied.

In contrast to both these accounts, a balanced and integrated narrative would consist of a balance of emotions and semantic statements alongside reflection about their own and their parents’ mental states and all their intentions.

Balanced

My parents were both religious and my father had a demanding job looking after his parishioners. He might have been a bit exhausted with attending funerals, and so on, and my Mum did a lot of church activities collecting for charities and so on. I can understand that at times my sister and I were a bit of a handful but we did feel neglected at times and though they tried there were times when I felt on my own with problems and had to deal with them myself. I think they thought that giving us independence and not covering us in cotton wool would make us stronger. In some ways that has made me stronger I think but perhaps has led me to become a little bit too focused on always attending to my son (Ben) who might feel a bit suffocated by me sometimes. I went off the rails a bit when I was a teenager and maybe I could have done with some more guidance and sympathy from them but I was a bit wild and I might have been a bit of an embarrassment for them at times. The church community was a bit strait-laced. I’ve thought about all this over the years and can see that even though they did not have much money they did try to look after us, for example send me on a holiday they could not really afford when I got pregnant when I was quite young and then bought us a house. Back then I blamed them quite a lot but being a parent now I can see that it is a hard job. No one gets it right all the time. I see them with Ben regularly and we get on better now. To be honest I sometimes think they are trying to compensate by being more attentive to Ben and a bit of me resents they were not more like that with me. We don’t agree on everything, but I know they love and care about me and I do them.

This extract indicates that balanced is not a ‘rosy’ idealised version of events but has a balance of some critical thoughts about her parents along with attempts to see things from their perspective, think about their intentions and consider the contexts that shape people’s actions.

These excerpts highlight how we can tell our stories from an attachment position or adaptation, for example, that involves dismissing our emotions, our need for others and expectations of care. Typically, since expectations of care from others are dismissed or minimised there is either an absence of holding others to account or blame for what has happened to us, or in some cases a sort of looking at events through rose-tinted glasses to make things look positive. In contrast, people may tell their story with a preoccupation with emotion, a focus on past hurt, grievances, anger, fear, sense of betrayal at how they have been unfairly treated. Often, thinking about the future is short-circuited by an emphasis on resolving these grievances before it is seen as possible to move forward. The narrative theories and therapies stress a social constructionist perspective that there are no ‘truths.’ Different stories are possible but attachment theory adds substance to this by revealing how one important way that stories differ is how they are shaped by the characteristic ways we have learnt to adapt to the emotional circumstances in which we developed (Crittenden & Landini, 2011). McAdams (1993) similarly observes that the stories we develop vary in ‘narrative tone’:

While some life stories exude optimism and hope, others are couched in the language of mistrust … the infant who experiences the secure and trusting attachment bond with the caregiver moves through childhood and beyond with faith in the goodness of the world and hope for the future…. (in contrast) A pessimistic narrative suggests … that the world is capricious and unpredictable.. and stories are bound to have unhappy endings.

(McAdams, 1993, p. 47, emphasis added)

Our starting point is the view that the stories we create about our lives are a key component in how we live and how we develop problems and difficulties in our relationships. We create narratives about what has happened to us in our lives and these help shape how we think of our past and importantly how we view and embark on the future. The ANT approach focuses on an important set of stories that we develop about our connections, namely our emotional and sexually intimate relationships, our attachments with others, such as our parents and children, and our dependencies, experiences and expectations of trust in our relationships. Attachment theory emphasises that we have a fundamental need, which appears to be based on an evolutionary survival instinct, to engage in intimate relationships fuelled by this need, starting in infancy, to seek safety and protection with our parents/carers when faced with threats of danger, loss and adversity. These early interactions between the parent and the child produce the experiences that form the material of our developing narratives about ourselves and others. These experiences subsequently come to be shaped into broader narratives and sets of expectations that we generalise to other relationships outside our families.

However, narratives are not a passive recording of the past but constitute an active process of continual construction, reconstruction and review. We tell our stories to others and their questions, reactions, comments, additions, revisions and corrections serve to reshape our stories with each telling. As we tell our stories, powerful feelings are evoked, even when we muse to ourselves, which shape how and when we tell our stories – for example: who we tell, what we leave out, forget or defend ourselves from remembering, alter, adjust and edit – and, of course, why we tell. We may also alter our stories according to whom we are telling and thus how safe we feel to be honest, straightforward, open and able to access our memories. Our framework approach therefore shares much with the narrative therapies in our emphasis on working with people’s narratives and relationships to foster change, liberation and release from their interpersonal problems. However, we add an emphasis on the emotional content of people’s stories, and as yet unstoried experiences, such as trauma, and in particular on how they manage their feelings and attachments, for example, how they comfort themselves and others in times of anxiety, distress and difficulties. We are particularly interested in how children learn to narrate their experiences and what assists them in developing the skills for open, consistent and coherent communication of their emotional experiences. In addition, we focus on the process of the telling of the narratives to consider what types of self-protective strategies or defences people are employing as painful, shameful, uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking memories are evoked in the telling. This shares some similarities with psychodynamic models in recognising the need to elicit both what is explicit and also what is implicit – what we find harder to articulate, and that which may not yet have reached conscious awareness. This does not involve adopting an ‘expert’ position of knowing better than the families we see but of finding ways to help them to articulate the more hidden, subjugated and feared aspects of their emotional experiences in their relationships and the self-protective strategies that they may have been employing. Central to this is the creation of a context of s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword to the first edition
• Authors’ introduction
• Chapter 1 Attachment, family systems and narratives
• Chapter 2 Blame, choice and responsibility: Corrective and replicative scripts in family life cycle
• Chapter 3 Life-cycle transitions and attachment narratives: Family life-cycle models of change and development
• Chapter 4 Love and sexuality: Systemic therapy and attachment narratives – applications with couples
• Chapter 5 Problems in managing arousal: Working with diagnoses of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder
• Chapter 6 Problems of addiction: Alcohol dependency and eating distress
• Chapter 7 Living with fear: Relational danger and violence in the family
• Chapter 8 Trauma and dissociation
• Chapter 9 Loss, grief and attachment
• Chapter 10 Supervision and consultation of systemic therapy and practice
• Appendix: formats for exploration
• References
• Index