With one of our four lovely interns, you can find the price point you need to move morward

Should you have a request for a specific therapist, let us know!  

 

“Co-created secure attachment imagery allows for the patient to experience caregivers in ways that a therapist cannot be expected to provide.”

– Dr David Elliott, co-author of the acclaimed text book, Attachment Disturbances in Adults

“All treatments for adult attachment insecurity include in some form a set of principles and methods that can be termed therapist-as-good-attachment-figure. This relational context is widely and appropriately accepted as a foundation for any attachment-focused therapy. We are offering a therapeutic model with the Three Pillars, that includes using patient-and-therapist co-created imagery of positive attachment experiences rooted in the 5 qualities of secure attachment. This imagery method is intrapersonal, in that it focuses on the patient’s inner experience of mental representations of attachment relationships; it is inter- personal, in that the process calls upon the therapist to be highly attuned, collaborative and responsive— as a good attachment figure—to the patient experiencing the imagery; and it is meta- interpersonal, in that the patient experiences the imagined interaction with the positive attachment relationships in the context of the therapist supporting and participating in the process. The use of imagery in this way can be a valuable contribution towards relational healing and adult earned secure attachment.”

  – ATTACHMENT: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. 15, June 2021: pp. 36–55.

If you are someone who likes to read the message boards and blogs, you have likely heard about Attachment work, and specifically the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) method.  

So what is all of this noise on the message boards, Reddit, social media, etc about?  

IPF imagery has a wide range of applicability, but within the context of the Three Pillars model, it is a psychotherapeutic tool which requires a high level of clinical training.  It is also just a part of a larger therapy, where collaborative skills and Mentalization-Based Therapy (Fonagy) are also components.  There is a small portion of individuals who learned “IPF” as a guided meditation technique and continue to promote it as such; leading to a great deal of confusion for the general public.   However, Ideal Parent Figure imagery is one component of the three “pillars” to heal attachment disturbances in adults.  Furthermore, without the clinical training necessary to deal with countertransference (our own issues as therapists), to repair ruptures when they occur (which are bound to happen), to discern the difference between dissociation and hypnotic states, to be able to hold traumatic memories… These “facilitators” are finding themselves in above their head.  And sadly, the people coming to them for help are leaving with a larger attachment injury than when they started.  Several of my patients and clients fall into this group, and have come to us demanding to have someone with clinical experience to do IPF with, because, after all, IPF is part of a psychotherapy.  And while learning IPF as a “technique” or “meditation” might be valuable for some, it is not what the treatment was meant for and has the potential to create further disorganization.
 
We at the Adult Attachment Program are driven by research and evidence. We know that Three Pillars Therapy, of which IPF is a component, is a pyschotherapeutic intervention. It is a clinical treatment, that brings up notions of trauma, abuse, loss, and neglect.
 
We have fully trained psychologists, therapists, and coaches, competent in the Ideal Parent Figure protocol and Three Pillars therapy. Designed by Dr. Daniel Brown and his colleagues, IPF specifically addresses unhealthy patterns in relationships and attachment due to developing insecure attachment styles as children.
 
We have found that when clients address their insecure attachment style, they also experience a new coherence of mind, where they are able to discuss attachment themes in their life without becoming dysregulated. Due to this new clarity, new possibilities will open up to you in relationships and in your life that you never knew were there. With a skilled therapist, you will use your own imagination to design your own ideal parents, completely different than your parents of origin. Then, using these Ideal Parent Figures, your therapist will guide you through co-created imagery that will shape and reshape your “internal working model” of attachment. If this work interests you and you’d like to schedule an appointment, or if you’d simply like some more information on this treatment, please contact us.
 
For clinicians who have some knowledge of attachment theory and wish to further their knowledge have the opportunity to learn and refine their skills at the Adult Attachment Program.  Starting in May, we will be beginning a Three Pillars Therapy case consultation and supervision masterclass.  David Elliott, the co-author of the acclaimed “Treatment Attachment Disturbances in Adults,” has given Dr. Zack the nod to begin to teach others the Three Pillar model.  This model is based in hundreds of years of clinical research indicating that what accounts for the most variance in treatment outcomes is the relationship between patient and therapist.  In other words, to deprive the patient of a therapeutic relationship by simply teaching a technique is actually neglecting the single factor that leads to the most change in an individual…. 

 

IPF in Research and Media

  1. Attachment Disturbances: Major Breakthrough in Treatment
  2. Ideal Parent Figure method in the treatment of complex posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood trauma: a pilot study
  3. That’s Good, Keep Going: Imagining the Way to Self-Compassion using the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

David Elliott’s Latest Published Paper Available for Download