"Today, it is a well-proven and fully accepted fact that our adult personalities, behaviors and choices are largely determined by our relationships with our parents throughout childhood. Mental health professionals know this concept as “Attachment Theory,” and often use it to help their patients overcome unhealthy life patterns. Despite its incredible validity and helpfulness, I have seen in my own work as a psychologist that most people resist the idea that their current struggles are rooted in their childhoods.
Here are eight steps for using Attachment Theory to solve a problem:
1. You realize that you keep following an unhealthy pattern in your life.
2. You are curious or baffled about why you have this particular pattern.
3. Look back to your childhood. Ask yourself if there were situations like this in your childhood. Did one of your parents do this in some way? Did your parents feel like this? Did this pattern exist in some form in your family of origin?
4. Identify the feelings involved in this pattern. What did you feel as a child in relation to this? What do you feel now?
5. When you determine the roots of the issue, acknowledge to yourself that you are not at fault for having it. You were raised this way. You are not to blame.
6. Recognize that your parents may not be at fault either. They may have been struggling themselves, or taught this by their own parents. Blame is not always helpful, but understanding is.
7. Now that you understand the roots and recognize that it’s not your fault, think about how you can change this pattern. What will it take? How hard will it be?
8. Now get to work to change the pattern."
See more...
@bellaonline