Attachment as a transformative process in AEDP: Operationalizing the intersection of attachment theory and affective neuroscience.

Abstract

While many models of individual psychotherapy acknowledge the significance of attachment theory for clinical work, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) seeks to operationalize the intersection of attachment and affective neuroscience to introduce innovations in its clinical practice. AEDP's stance and techniques aim to (i) foster attachment security through the clinical process and (ii) harness the transformative resilience of secure attachment to potentiate deep and lasting psychological change. Viewing secure attachment as a transformative experience, case vignettes offer examples of AEDP attachment-based work: moment-to-moment experiential work processing attachment security as a powerful new experience; and then, its meta-therapeutic processing. Integrating a new, positive relational experience in the here-and-now organically evokes the painful experiences of the original relational trauma. Thus, traumatic memories are also worked through in the service of positive psychological transformation.