A Chance for Change: Treating Disorganized Attachment With The Attachment Healing Center Model of Treatment

In this study I investigated the psycho-educational component of the Healing in Resonance model of treatment as implemented at the Attachment Healing Center for working with children who have been identified as having disorganized attachment. Multi-case methodology was used with five families representing five parents and five children. Grounded theory was used to analyze the journals, interviews and focus group discourse of the participants. There were also some quantitative tools used to diagnose the children and to quantify their behavioral changes. The grounded theory analysis revealed the importance of the child’s caregivers taking ownership for how they show up in relationship to their child. In this relationship the parent must address the child’s underlying need and not their behavior. While the therapeutic component of the model of treatment was not studied, the parents reported that the relationship they had with their therapist was critical to their ability to implement interventions and perspectives they were learning in the groups. As the parents saw the interventions modeled by the clinician working with the family, the parents were able to see the changes they needed to implement in the relationship with their child. As the child’s behavior began to shift in response to the parents’ change the parents expressed a sense of hopefulness and gratitude. The change came about more quickly than the parents anticipated as most of the parents had previously implemented a behavioral modification approach to helping their child change and this relationship approach brought about change more quickly than the parents thought possible. As the child’s behaviors began to change the parents were grateful for the changes and stated that the family moved from chaos to calm or from conflict to cooperation. From the research findings the critical training components that most impacted the parents and supported their bringing about change in their parenting style were discussed. Additionally, I also provided suggestions for further research.Counselor EducationDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Division of Individual, Family and Community EducationGoodrich, KristopherNoll, BruceWarner, SharonChavez, Thoma