The five A’s, it is now clear, address one essential need and that is the need for mirroring. This is attunement, the perfect pitch of emotional acceptance and support. When our feelings as children are minimized, proscribed, or disregarded, we can’t hear the full range of feeling tones, and a part of us becomes inert and numb. Imagine the joy we feel when someone comes along who welcomes and loves us with all our feelings. A relationship with such a person opens and releases us; in other words, it works. It supports and enriches the insights of self psychology, which focuses on the healing
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