Video 040 Co-constructing a hypothetical ‘ideal’ parent
Use this solution
With clients with significant attachment wounds and developmental deficits because of inadequate parenting that are affecting life in the ‘now’. IPF (the Ideal Parent figure) concept (used here alongside EMDR) is widely used in attachment work and is not unique to EMDR.
Studies show this process is effective for stabilization in cases of adult CPTSD where there was a history of childhood trauma (see reference 2. below).
The Ideal Parent can also be used as an interweave to overcome a blockage or looping if this occurs when using the standard protocol to address an early life event involving a parent.
Originator
1. Usually associated with the writings and work of Laurel Parnell (see ‘Attachment-Focussed EMDR- Healing relational trauma’ New York, Norton & Co, Inc.
2. See also European Journal of Psychotraumatology, Volume 8, 2017, Issue 1.
Video production
Matthew Davies Media Ltd, Llanidloes, Powys. www.matthewmedia.com
Take-Away Section
What this covers
The case is about a young man, called Tom, brought up in a highly dysfunctional family: an alcoholic mother often depressed and neglectful of Tom and a controlling, sometimes violent, father who would belittle him for showing a desire to learn and do well in school. Tom grew up with a sense of being rejected by his family and carried thoughts of being ’bad’ and ‘shameful’.
These thoughts became particularly troublesome after Tom developed a serious interest in a fellow student at university. He found himself holding back from the relationship, scared that she might reject him when she found out what a ‘bad’ person he was.
The video demonstrates how Tom’s damaging and pervasive attachment experiences with his mother and father can be repaired and reversed through rewiring his thought patterns. The video shows how the therapist and Tom co-construct and install an alternative reality - a hypothetical ‘ideal’ mother as a resource. In turn, this led to new neural pathways that changed the way he felt about himself and how he related to others. The same process was used later to create an ’ideal’ father.
How long
15.46 minutes
Related videos
Go to ‘Take-away’?
Wrap up:
Aide mémoire: Step by step guide how to use the protocol - available to copy and paste.
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+ Wrap up
The five conditions for a client to feel securely attached to the therapist
- The client feels safe
As a therapist, first and foremost, we want your client to feel protected. If clients feel protected, they feel safe. You will resource them well with options such as safe place, container, etc. (see videos 050, 051, 054) and be fully able to deal with disturbing abreactions (see video 024). You will be available to them in an emergency, give them clear information if they need to communicate with you and be sure to keep appointments. The client needs to feel protected by you, but not in an overwhelming or intrusive way.
- The client feels seen and known
Attuned therapists can read their clients’ cues accurately and respond to his or her needs. Attuned responses give clients information about the effects of their behaviour. Clients will learn that when they signal a need, they can expect a prompt, predictable, and accurate response. The result is a greater feeling of control over their lives.
- The client feels comfort, soothing and reassurance
The therapist attitude is open and inviting. When the client is distressed, the therapist is able to bring them back to a calm emotional state. Helping the client manage his or her distress and frustrations will help them develop an internal model of being soothed and comforted. Over time, the client will develop the ability to manage his or her own distress and self-soothing.
- The client feels valued
Feeling valued begins in infancy and is the foundation of healthy self-esteem development. Therapists need to model this with their clients by adopting a welcoming manner, expressing appropriate, positive and genuine affirmation about what the client has learnt and achieved.
- The client feels supported to explore
Clients need to feel supported and encouraged as they are exposed to ideas, emotions, and situations they may never have encountered before. They will need to feel supported in exploring this new world safely. Therapists will be ready to encourage exploration but also able to provide him or her with a safety net based on the various interventions they have in their EMDR toolbox. This sense of security allows the client to explore, discover, succeed, and fail; and through such exploration, the client is able to develop a good, autonomous, strong, and unique sense of self.
+ Aide Mémoire
When we work with attachment issues with a client, a foundational principle is that the therapist must establish a relational context with the client rooted in the 5 qualities of secure attachment. These are described in more detail in the Wrap-up section, but in summary the client needs to feel:
- Ask the client
- Safe
- Seen and known
- Comfortable, soothed and reassured
- Valued
- Supported to explore.
Entering childhood experiences can lead adult clients to dissociate. The therapist must be able to manage this to avoid even larger attachment injury than when they started. There are several videos relevant to dissociation in our library including Videos 001, 002, 003, 015, 024, and 078 (Pt1.2).
The first thing to do is to resource the client in the usual way. Then, get a family and client history.
Describe the process – how using the client’s imagination to create together a hypothetical ‘ideal’ parent figure (mother, father or both), provides an alternative reality and new neural pathways in the brain through which damage, due to inadequate parenting in the past, can be repaired. You’ll be using BLS in this process. Explain that this doesn’t mean the client will not remember the past – it will feel less significant, and they will be able to respond to situations that are upsetting in the present in a different and more measured way.
Ask the client to imagine the ‘ideal’ version of the most significant parent in as much detail as possible: how they would be dressed, smell, being held and hugged by them, what qualities would they have – matching the five qualities required for a secure attachment.
When this imagined figure is firmly in place and the client has a strong sense of them, ask the client to imagine what the ideal parent would have done, rather than what had actually happened, from being a baby (in the mother’s womb if the parent is the mother), through early years up to the present. The therapist will be doing BLS throughout this process, stopping from time to time to enquire how the client is doing and focussing on significant events as necessary with further BLS as necessary. If blockages or looping occur, use interweaves or ways to unblock shown in Videos 009, 010, 076 (Pt 1 & 2), 077, 078 (Pt 1.1), 078 (Pt 1.2), and 078(Pt 1.3).
End each session leaving the client feeling safe and secure.