Called the “most important assessment of attachment styles in the last 20 years, the AAI has been famously labeled as the “gold standard” assessment. This brief course will give you a clinical understanding of the AAI and its respective findings and how to properly, collaboratively, and ethically share results with clients and patients. For those
The 3-Pillars Model and Ideal Parent Figure – Integral Parts of Integrative Attachment Therapy – Case Consultation and Supervision As a trauma specialist often working in the areas of CPTSD and attachment traumas, I was thrilled to find Dr. Zack as both a therapist and trainer in the Three Pillars therapy and the Ideal Parent
The SCIENCE of Relationships Level I and Level II Courses are Up Self Paced Learning Level I Course – The SCIENCE of Relationships 89.99 This is a self-paced course where we use evidence based research in Adult Attachment Theory to transform your life and your relationships. The first course in this series is self-paced and
Often, clients aren’t ready to do the work necessary to repair their attachment disturbances until they come to see the suffering that Insecure Attachment creates. I started attachment work after an unhealthy relationship with an unavailable woman. The fact that she was unavailable initially helped me feel safe. I thought it would serve to protect
No Room for a Mind of One’s Own The Preoccupied Dilemma If you or someone you know could benefit from this work, please contact us, as we have both one-on-one treatment, groups and workshops, and even self-paced courses. The Preoccupied Attachment Style The first of the insecure attachment styles that we are going to discuss
Guided Imagery: An Ideal Partner Using the 5 Conditions of Secure Attachment Take a moment to settle into your body. Leave the world of thinking for some time. Andyou’re your attention like a magnifying glass, starting at the top of your scalp, and just relaxing your facial muscles. As you scan down your body, continue to release any
Concentration means single-pointed awareness. One consciously collects and steadies attention on an object. The natural effect of concentrating the mind is tranquility and stillness. It brings you to the present moment. As you sustain concentration for a longer period of time, you can no longer find any trace of thoughts. You see things clearly as
Often, we are driven by emotion in ways we are not even aware of, especially in a time of crisis like we are in now. So, it’s important to spend some time checking in with our emotional experience. This can be done in a very direct way through meditation. By inviting your emotional life into your
One of the more common questions I get from my clients and students is how to deal with unpleasant emotions and mind states as they arise in meditation and throughout the day. It’s a big question with many right answers. And the answers differ, depending on the context and the client’s meditation skills. So let’s break it down, using doubt as an example of an unpleasant mind state.
In times of crisis, it becomes important to develop and draw on our inner strength. The forced pause on all of our lives has created a paradigm shift that calls for an entirely new set of priorities and behavioral maxims. But we know how to do this.
The Coronavirus was thought to start at a “wet market” in Wuhan, China. Wet markets are popular in Asia, where vendors sell live animals by the bulk to consumers to who then kill the animals on their own and sell to the public. It is thought that the virus came from a bat, who may
A boy was given a small bird for his birthday. The boy, not knowing any better, squeezed the bird as hard as he could. “This is MY bird. It will be mine always. I love this bird and it’s not going anywhere.” Then the boy looked down in his hands and saw the bird was
Reflexive abdominal breathing provides a great deal of benefits in the treatment of many clinical and non-clinical mental health issues. Firstly, learning to reflexively engage in abdominal breathing provides training in non-judgmental awareness. Practicing giving up control to the breath in the moment allows for a more flexible relationship to whatever is present. One learns to settle one’s mind by sustaining attention on and awareness of the sensations of the rising and falling of the abdomen. This sustained attention facilitates an efficient use of one’s attentional resources, thus settling the mind. When one’s mind is settled, the self-management of the distressing posttraumatic or anxiety symptoms can more easily be regulated.
This is why we practice with feeling tone in meditation. We learn to watch our desire for pleasure arise, often very strong, and yet still, pass away. We can sit with an uncomfortable and tight body, noting its unpleasantness, getting curious about it. What makes this painful body so unpleasant? What I’ve come to realize through years of practice, is that my body suffers most when I’m needing to be another way. True freedom from pain and suffering in the body is equanimity. We’ve changed our relationship to unpleasant. It’s just patterns of sensations, some hot, some cold. There was a vibratory quality and moved and it changed and it got more and less intense. And I just kept noting, kept noting. And then the bell rang. And it felt pleasant. But not as pleasant as I expected.
The topic of human suffering has always fascinated me. It wasn’t until about five years ago that I realized that we spend so much of our life’s energy on futile attempts to avoid suffering. We use drugs and alcohol, denial, dishonesty, and dissociation. Sometimes it seems like we spend our entire lives trying to avoid suffering and increase pleasure. What I have come to realize, through different spiritual texts, spiritual practice, and simply my own experience, is that suffering is an inevitable part of human existence. This we cannot change. No amount of running or hiding, and certainly no substance can change that fact. What we can change, through meditation, is our relationship to that suffering. Maybe the fact that painful events exist in life is not by itself a cause for true suffering. It is our constant aversive relationship to that pain that creates true suffering.
Practicing with the Four Foundations of Buddhist Mindfulness is the “direct path to realization.” Well, that is according to the ancient Buddhist discourse, the Satipatthana Sutta. This discourse explains the theory and practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness; Body, feeling, mind, and dharmas (the nature of things). Each object is rich with its own explorations, practices, and goals to be attained. According to the Satipatthana Sutta, the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness is the direct path to realization.
