Attachment in Therapeutic Practice

by Jeremy Holmes

In insecure attachment, rigid prior probabilities are clung to, either by isolationism or dependency. Some, or all, of this may be neurochemically potentiated. In secure attachment, the therapists’ and clients’ oxytocin systems become entrained. This in turn cross-talks to the dopamine system: ‘reward’ – the therapist’s approval and love – enables the ‘settings’ of prior predictions to be altered, allowing the free energy of health to overcome the bindings of neurosis. Revised assumptions become

possible; inhibitions of feeling, thought, an...