Addressing Mental Ilness in our Community

Our society is facing a rising wave of mental health problems that are overwhelming healthcare and other providers.

What is available under publicly funded programs is for the most part totally inadequate to meet this challenge.

Those who most need resources (e.g. individual therapy) are usually the ones who have the least access to them.

But even if all psychotherapy were free, there is no way that current structures can meet the demands.

Attachment Theory

An increasing body of evidence points to early life attachment issues with primary caregivers as highly predictive of long term resilience in the face of averse life events.

This means that children brought up with less than ideal relational support (for any number of reasons), are at high risk later in life for developing mental health problems.

The focus of much of the cutting edge research today is on how to undo attachment damage. This rebuilds a sense of self and empowers individuals to embark on their own path of recovery.

What can be done

The goal of this project is to train and equip communities to be a safe and healing place for those with mental health issues. This is done by teaching and practising ways of providing experiences of secure attachment within the community.

Popular Level Resources on Attachment Theory

When Anxious Meets Avoidant — How Attachment Styles Help and Hurt our Relationships – Good interview with Amir Levine. An easy and well presented introduction to the effect on adults of childhood attachment styles.
Yes, It’s Your Parents’ Fault – Great article from the NY Times.
Attachment Styles and Close Relationships Survey – A choice of two surveys to find your attachment style.

Levine, Amir and “Rachel Heller”. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love. TarcherPerigee, 2010

A popular introduction to Adult attachment theory and its application to success or failure in relationships.

Academic Books

Crittenden, Patricia McKinsey and Andrea Landini. Assessing Adult Attachment: A Dynamic-Maturational Approach to Discourse Analysis. Norton, 2011

Eppel, Alan B.. Sweet Sorrow: Love, Loss and Attachment in Human Life. Karnac, 2009

Sweet Sorrow is the exceptional kind of work that I wish I had the privilege to read as I began my psychotherapy training twenty years ago. It provides the reader with key concepts, explication that is free of jargon, introducing towering thinkers in the field for further studying and illustrating the phenomena with succinct case studies. Sweet Sorrow will be on my `must read’ list as I teach my psychotherapy students and supervisees in Toronto, Hong Kong and Beijing. (from Amazon review by Danny Yeung)

Parnell, Laurel and Elena Felder,‎ Holly Prichard,‎ Prabha Milstein and‎ Nancy Ewing. Attachment-Focused EMDR: Healing Relational Trauma. Norton, 2013

This looks to be a very valuable contribution. (Review coming soon)

Mooney, Carol Garhart. Theories of Attachment: An Introduction to Bowlby, Ainsworth, Gerber, Brazelton, Kennell, and Klaus. Redleaf, 2008

Unfortunately the contents of this book do not match the title, unless understood to mean that rather than being an introduction to Attachment Theory, the book covers only a few specific individuals. For example, Mary Main, the pioneer of Adult Attachment Theory does not even get a mention. Nor do any others since.

Wallin, David J. Attachment in Psychotherapy. Guilford, 2007

Although not the lightest reading, this is one of the most comprehensive and up to date book on childhood and adult attachment. The first chapters give an excellent history of the research results.

Resources on Attachment Repair

AEDP Resources – Information about Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, a powerful tool for attachment repair
Attachment and loss: Matters of life and death Excellent article from New Therapist which includes a quick introduction to AEDP.

For more information, please contact the author of this website: Andrew Fountain