We continue to review The Great Attachment Debate, a series of interviews published in Psychology Networker.  I wrote about the first three experts in last month’s blog post. This time I will summarize the contributions of Dr. David Schnarch, Sue Johnson, and Dr. Alan Schore and invite readers to share their views.

The next interview was with Dr. David Schnarch, who strongly attacked attachment-based therapy. He reported having so much difficulty not with the theory of Attachment, but more how it has been used to create therapeutic interventions.

He actively challenged the view that marital problems result from problems with attachment and that what partners need is secure attachment. He sees this way of thinking as promoting dependence rather than resilience.

He disputed the notion that most marital problems come from lack of closeness and that what marital partners need is more closeness.  He discussed his view that too many partners are emotionally fused and that it is differentiation that promotes greater resilience and healthier connection.

He thinks Attachment-based therapy is an easier therapy to do and presents less challenge to the therapist than differentiation-based therapy. He believes Attachment-based therapy too easily excuses clients’ “bad behavior” under the guise of them responding from attachment wounds.

He challenged the therapists listening to the debate to recognize that the therapist’s office should not always be a safe place and to remember that intimacy and sexual desire arise from differentiation not from emotional fusion.

One week later, Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused therapy sang the praises of  Attachment Theory saying it provides a clear roadmap for understanding the intensity of distress in couples relationships. She views anger and pain in couples’ relationships as a cry of separation distress as one partner reacts to the other turning away.  She stressed the job for the therapist is to bring the partners back into connection. In her framework differentiation occurs naturally when partners have a secure attachment.

In the final week of the “debate”, Rich Simon interviewed Dr. Alan Schore. Dr. Schore views Attachment theory as the predominant theory of emotional development. From his viewpoint, the largest contribution of Attachment theory is that it has enabled psychotherapy to shift away from cognition and into understanding emotion and psychobiology. The shift has resulted in therapy focusing much more on affect regulation rather than on insight.

He described the importance of the primary care giver’s attunement to the baby’s bodily cues. It is through the process of attunement, misattunement and repair that brain circuits for affect regulation are developed. Psychopathology then derives from lack of repair and from the brain bathing in stress hormones like cortisol. Ongoing successful repair results in secure attachment.

I found listening to the 6 interviews very stimulating. Rich Simon selected highly knowledgeable theoreticians and clinicians who could strongly articulate their own point of view. It was easy for a listener to feel like a true believer after each session.

I had two regrets. I was sorry that there was no 7th session enabling the “masters’ to debate each other. I would have enjoyed listening to them challenge one another in a “true” debate format.

My second regret was that there was no time spent integrating the best of the different approaches. For me, this is my ongoing challenge in developing better and better couples therapy. Attachment is one lens. It is valuable in understanding why partners react as they do and it makes a lot of fights and withdrawal behavior predictable.

However, unlike what Sue Johnson stated, I have never seen a high-distress, hostile couple differentiate successfully without some help from a skilled therapist. Once they feel more secure, they may give each other more freedom and independence. However, security is not sufficient for partners to successfully manage their emotional reactivity, “own their own dark side”, risk deeply with one another, weather the challenging early years of differentiation and truly have empathy for each other’s life challenges.

Oh, if only love and growth were that easy!

If this exchange of ideas stimulates your interest and makes you want to delve more deeply into couples therapy training, I’d like to tell you about my online training program. It is comprised of written lessons, conference calls with me, case presentations, and blog discussions on your questions. August is the month each year that we have the most openings. I am planning an informational call for you to learn more about the training.  It is scheduled for 9am Pacific Time July 29th. To join the free phone call, email Michelle at Michelle@couplesinstitute.com and she will send you the phone number.

To learn more details about the course or to reserve one of the spots, visit www.couplesinstitutetraining.com/developmentalmodel.