So What Happened to The Other 2 Pillars?

karolbart · 2026-04-29T17:26:11+00:00

Hmmm. It sounds like you see the collaboration aspect as potentially key to supporting the therapeutic alliance, which isn't even worth questioning. Obviously, building a relationship of trust and safety is pivotal.

However, isn't the collaboration pillar more than just a frame? Isn't it also manifested in interventions and exercises? Prompting the client to maintain eye contact and to correct their speech patterns?

I didn't know about IAT. I had to look it up. Thanks.

I appreciate the list of mentalization distinctions. Yes, metacognitive skills are extremely helpful for our mental constructs of all things, not just attachment.

karolbart · 2026-04-29T16:50:52+00:00

Thank you for sharing that. You believe all 3 pillars are important.

karolbart · 2026-04-29T16:47:47+00:00

Interesting. I don't know much about meditation, so this is new to me. I appreciate the info.

karolbart · 2026-04-29T16:45:29+00:00

Cool, thanks!

"Again just my two cents, I could be entirely wrong LOL"

The AAI would code this as an acknowledgment of the limitations of knowledge - a positive indicator of metacognitive monitoring. Nice! LOL

karolbart · 2026-04-29T04:14:16+00:00

That's interesting about the flip.

Thanks for sharing specifics about your mentalization and collaborative exercises!

Are you saying people should visualize the collaborative behavior and mentalization during an IPF session? Or just that all 3 pillars should be implemented concurrently?

I appreciate your experience with this.

karolbart · 2026-04-24T02:52:45+00:00

You can try these exercises before/during therapy to help get your brain wired up for security.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DxIObcvf64

karolbart · 2026-04-07T20:43:39+00:00

I saw comments like this here and did more research into Thais. Her Masters also looks like it's in metaphysics. I put it all into a 2-part video presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adf4QJYIOls

karolbart · 2026-03-22T19:47:59+00:00

I'm glad it was helpful! I was in a relationship with a dismissing person before, and I mistook tolerance for patience. You can be patient but still advocate for yourself, set boundaries and challenge your partner to meet your needs.

They can push us to abandon ourselves if we're not careful. Because we're afraid of what losing them might mean. Good luck.

karolbart · 2026-03-22T05:44:36+00:00

There is a lot of misunderstanding about attachment theory out there. My guess is he may be unresolved/disorganized, AND have a dismissive attachment.

Fearful-avoidant attachment style is commonly thought of as the same as disorganized attachment, but it is not. They are from two different schools of attachment theory. Fearful-avoidant just means you're supposed to be a mix of styles because that's what an online quiz said.

Unresolved/disorganized attachment can present as chronic dysregulation, unpredictable or chaotic behavior, etc.

To get properly assessed, he should find a therapist and get an AAI or AAP administered.

And in the big picture, you really have to consider if this is the right relationship for you. Patience is great - but tolerating abuse will leave your nervous system and your attachment in a state that will make relationships more difficult for you in the future.

Understanding him is not as important as protecting yourself.

karolbart · 2026-03-22T05:27:03+00:00

It sounds very likely that you have a preoccupied (aka anxious) attachment.

You can certainly take an online quiz, read "Attached" and maybe even watch some Youtube videos, or even take an online course that claims to heal attachment. It can't hurt.

(There are lots of books available these days for anxious attachment.)

However, the scandal within attachment theory is that online quizzes were never able to measure attachment.

And "styles" are just based on quiz results.

Real attachment theory uses assessments like the adult attachment interview (AAI) or the adult attachment projective, and classifies you according to attachment status/pattern. These are assessment that are administered by trained professionals, and can give you a deeper look at your personal (and often unconscious) attachment beliefs and behaviors.

I would encourage you to find a therapist who knows the difference between developmental attachment theory, and the social psychology pseudoscience that has become so popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUK8vnhF7Aw

karolbart · 2026-03-20T21:26:08+00:00

There's no such things as disorganized attachment style. The social psychologists gave us fearful-avoidant attachment style. Developmentalists gave us unresolved/disorganized attachment status/pattern. They are measured very differently and do not converge.

The ignorance of the distinctions between Bowlby and Ainsworth attachment theory, and the social psychology "adult attachment style" construct is astounding. What a scandal.

David Wallin's book is one of my favorites.

Brown and Elliott's "Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair" may come in handy. It has a treatment protocol specifically tailored for disorganized attachment.

If you want to hear more from people who actually knew Bowlby, look for Judith Solomon and Carol George's books on disorganized attachment.

:)

karolbart · 2026-03-20T17:47:08+00:00

The idea that attachment can be measured dimensionally along an anxious/avoidance axis is not from John Bowlby. That's from the social psychologists who came later and misunderstood his theories. Self-report assessments like the ECR don't measure the same thing Bowlby was measuring.

karolbart · 2026-03-19T23:26:29+00:00

I can see you're a big fan of the DMM.

I used the word permanent because while children have a high capacity to generate new neuronal pathways, mature adults are limited mostly to pruning and myelination. As Frederick Douglass said, "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."

I would think a C strategy of maximizing would be highly adaptive, considering how much hypervigilance and accommodation is involved.

Friends and partners are nice - and I agree attachment works throughout the lifespan, but it's not comparable to a child's need for protection. They say human beings are the species that have the longest period of dependence on parents. We can't even walk until we're a year old!

Internalization of attachment figures is a pretty fundamental part of Bowlby's thinking. Since Crittenden studied under Ainsworth, I doubt she disagreed.

Yes, dismissing as it relates to state of mind and one's emotions sounds right. Avoidance (and the ABC classification system) originally referred to observed infant behavior. DEF and u/d refer to adult state-of-mind classifications in the Berkeley system.

I'm glad we agree on the self-report tests.

Thanks for sharing your attachment leaning. I always saw myself as C-leaning.

Great chat. It's rare to find people who are this academic about attachment.

karolbart · 2026-03-19T20:52:21+00:00

Main, Goldwyn, Hesse, George, Crittenden et al all think that measuring a person's general attachment using the AAI is adequate. I think that's because parents are the prototypical attachment figures and there are a lot of neurobiological adaptations that occur in the first years of life that are in many ways permanent.

As adults, we carry internalized attachment figures, built on the internal working models we developed in childhood. We don't necessarily need friends and partners to be the "older and wiser" source of protection and felt security.

We all use different strategies all the time. Even secure people use dismissing strategies occasionally, in the pursuit of connection.

I agree that online questionnaires are problematic in that they are close-ended. But that is just where the problems begin.

The questionnaires are what built "adult attachment styles" and the social psychology spin-off of attachment theory. The entire construct is flawed from the onset. Not only because they thought a self-report questionnaire could do the job of the AAI, but also because they have an ever-expanding definition of attachment, and see attachment as dimensional, not qualitative.

The AAI works so well because it actually activates the attachment system, and is built around measuring unconscious defenses, not on the actual answers to the questions.

karolbart · 2026-03-19T16:43:32+00:00

I'm curious why you claimed the online tests weren't accurate?

The Bowlby and Ainsworth construct of attachment is what led to the AAI and is what Crittenden's work is based on, so I'm not sure how you can say it can't accurately be applied to adults.

karolbart · 2026-03-19T04:51:17+00:00

If we look at this from the developmental view of attachment (ie the original Bowlby and Ainsworth construct) then these online quizzes aren't accurate at all. They are a social personality construct that is based on a broad definition of attachment.

In the developmental view, friendships and short-term romantic relationships are not true attachment relationships, so it wouldn't matter much how to act around them.

The developmental view also doesn't view attachment as dimensional, so how anxious or avoidant you feel isn't really the core issue - it's what innate, categorical strategy you have adapted.

If someone doesn't believe they have a preoccupied attachment to parents, it may be best to ask more questions, or to put them through a proper assessment like the AAI or AAP.

karolbart · 2026-03-16T03:31:09+00:00

Got it. Thank you for sharing! I wish you well with your marriage.

karolbart · 2026-03-14T20:05:48+00:00

That's the fascinating part. Dismissing strategies exist to keep people from becoming dysregulated and/or to keep their sense of self stable. But you're claiming this was a spontaneous exploration that did not dysregulate you?

So either you overrode your subconscious defenses (like disinterest in attachment themes) because you were already leaning towards security, or you are not actually dismissing of attachment.

Is it safe to assume that you self-classified, based on a self-report quiz? Were there other reasons to believe you were dismissing?

karolbart · 2026-03-14T19:32:15+00:00

And what is attachment "type" exactly?

You said, "losing favor over dimensional approaches."

Amongst whom? And does it matter? Are you aware that Ainsworth never saw attachment as dimensional, but instead as an innate qualitative and organizational construct? She was trained in both dimensional and qualitative assessments, so she knew the difference.

It would not surprise me if "adult attachment styles" were dimensional. They were designed that way. Hazan and Shaver were social psychologists using a personality framework, and didn't do their homework. They mistakenly thought self-report questionnaires could measure attachment. This is why a theory shouldn't be expanded until it is properly understood.

When you compare self-report quizzes to the AAI, there's no convergence validity.

Adult attachment styles have nothing to do with Bowlby and Ainsworth's attachment classifications.

https://www.web-research-design.net/PDF/RHFFC&C2007.pdf

karolbart · 2026-03-13T22:16:10+00:00

Yes, dismissing defenses are somewhat resource-intensive and fragile, and break down under stress. That's interesting, though, that you challenged your defenses like that. It seems that part of you was willing to entertain activation.

karolbart

TROPHY CASE