Abstract
Attachment theory, viewed through the lens of neurobiology, explains how infants learn, through unconscious, rapid, non-verbal interactions with caretaking adults, to successfully manage their own emotional energy. These neurological affect-regulating mechanisms formed in early childhood shape later-forming attachment relationships, including those of adult romantic dyads which depend, for intimacy and stability, on the same right brain, nonverbal, modulating capacities. Psychoanalytic researchers have identified healing, implicit, unconscious psychobiological mechanisms, other than verbal insight, explanation and interpretation that can be learned remedially in couples’ therapy. This paper examines an implicit, emotion-focused approach to couples’ work that brings unconscious affect center stage.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Atkinson, B. (1999, July/August). Brain storms: Rewiring the neural circuitry of family conflict. The Emotional Imperative.
Atkinson, B. (2002, September). Brain to brain: New ways to help couples avoid relapse. Psychotherapy Networker.
Beebe, B. (2000). Coconstructing mother-infant distress: The microsynchrony of maternal impingement and infant avoidance in the face-to-face encounter. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 20, 412–440.
Beebe, B., & Lachmann, F. (1994). Representation and internalization in infancy: Three principles of salience. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 11, 127–166.
Beebe, B., & Lachmann, F. (1998). Co-constructing inner and relational processes: Self- and mutual regulation in infant research and adult treatment. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 15(4), 480–516.
Beer, J. S., & Lombardo, M. V. (2007). Insights into emotion regulation from neuropsychology. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 69–86). New York: Guilford Press.
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from experience. London: Heinemann.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Clinical applications of attachment theory. London: Routledge.
Byrne, M., Carr, A., & Clark, M. (2004). The efficacy of behavioral couples therapy and emotionally focused therapy for couple distress. Contemporary Family Therapy, 26(4), 361–387.
Cozolino, L. (2002). The neuroscience of psychotherapy: Building and rebuilding the human brain. New York: W. W. Norton.
Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace.
deBellis, M. D., Keshaven, M. S., Shifflett, H., Iyengar, S., Beers, S. R., Hall, J., et al. (2002). Brain structures in pediatric maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorders: A sociodemographically matched study. Biological Psychiatry, 52(11), 1066–1078.
Demos, K., Kelly, W., Ryan, S., Davis, F., & Whalen, P. (2008). Human amygdala sensitivity to the pupil size of others. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 2729–2734.
Denton, W. H., Burleson, B. R., Clark, T. E., Rodriguez, C. P., & Hobbs, B. (2000). A randomized trial of emotion-focused therapy for couples in a training clinic. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 26, 65–78.
Erel, O., & Burman, B. (1995). Interrelatedness of marital relations and parent-child relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 108–132.
Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E., & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self. New York: Other Press.
Fosha, D. (2003). Dyadic regulation and experiential work with emotion and relatedness in trauma and disordered attachment. In M. F. Solomon & D. J. Siegel (Eds.), Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body, and brain (pp. 221–281). New York: Norton.
Goldman, A., & Greenberg, L. (1992). Comparison of integrated systemic and emotionally. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60, 962–969.
Gottman, J. M. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Crown Publishing Group.
Gottman, J. M. & Gottman, J. S. (2008). Gottman method couple therapy. In A. S. Gurmna (Ed.), Clinical handbook of couple therapy (Chap. 5, pp. 138–166). New York: Guilford Press.
Harrison, N., Singer, T., Rotshtein, P., Dolan, R., & Critchley, H. (2006). Pupillary contagion: Central mechanisms engaged in sadness processing. Scan, 1, 5–17.
Harrison, N., Wilson, C., & Critchley, H. (2007). Processing of observed pupil size modulates perception of sadness and predicts empathy. Emotion, 7, 724–729.
Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. R. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511–524.
Johnson, S. (1996). The practice of emotionally focused marital therapy: Creating. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Johnson, S. (2004). Attachment theory a guide for healing couple relationships. In W. S. Rholes & A. Simpson (Eds.), Adult attachment (pp. 367–387). New York: Guilford Press.
Johnson, S. (2005). The evolution of couples therapy: A new era. The Psychologist: British Psychological Association, 18, 538–539.
Johnson, S., & Denton, W. (2002). Emotionally focused couple therapy: Creating secure. In A. Gurman & N. Jacobson (Eds.), Clinical handbook of couple therapy (3rd ed., pp. 221–250). New York: Guilford Press.
Johnson, S., & Talitman, E. (1997). Predictors of success in emotionally focused marital therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 23, 135–152.
Knickmeyer, R. C., Gouttard, S., Kang, C., Evans, D., Wilber, K., Smith, J. K., et al. (2008). A structural MRI study of human brain development from birth to 2 years. The Journal of Neuroscience, 28(47), 12176–12182.
LeDoux, J. (2002). Synaptic self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Viking.
Levine, P. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Lewis, J. (2000). Repairing the bond in important relationships: A dynamic for. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 1375–1378.
Lewis, T., Amin, F., & Lannon, R. (2002). A general theory of love. New York: Random House.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E., & Parsons, E. (1999). Atypical attachment in infancy and early childhood among children at developmental risk. IV. Maternal frightened, frightening, or atypical behaviour and disorganized infant attachment patterns. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64(3), 67–96.
Makinen, J., & Johnson, S. (2006). Resolving attachment injuries in couples using EFT: Steps towards forgiveness and reconciliation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 1055–1064.
Nitschke, J. B., Nelson, E. E., Rusch, B. D., Fox, A. S., Oakes, T. R., & Davidson, R. J. (2004). Orbitofrontal cortex tracks positive mood in mothers viewing pictures of their newborn infants. Neuroimage, 21(2), 583–592.
Ogden, P., &. Minton, K. (2000). Sensorimotor psychotherapy: One method for processing traumatic memory. Traumatology, 6(3), Article 3.
Papousek, H., & Papousek, M. (1979). Early ontogeny of human social interaction: Its biological roots and social dimensions. In M. von Cranach, K. Foppa, W. Lepenies, & D. Ploog (Eds.), Human ethology: Claims and limits of a new discipline (pp. 456–478). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Perry, B. D., Pollard, R. A., Blakely, T. L., Baker, W. L., & Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood trauma, the neurobiology of adaptation, and “use dependent” development in the brain: How “states” become “traits”. Infant Mental Health Journal, 16, 271–291.
Porges, S. W. (2001). The polyvagal theory: Phylogenetic substrates of a social. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 123–146.
Safran, J. D., & Muran, J. C. (2000). Negotiating the therapeutic alliance: A relational treatment guide. New York: Guilford Press.
Sander, L. (1991, June). Recognition process: Specificity and organization in early human development. In University of Massachusetts conference on the psychic life of the infant.
Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self; the neurobiology of emotional development. New Jersey: Erldbaum Associates.
Schore, A. N. (1996). The experience-dependent maturation of a regulatory system in the orbital prefrontal cortex and the origin of developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 59–87.
Schore, A. N. (1997). Early organization of the nonlinear right brain and development of a predisposition to psychiatric disorders. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 595–631.
Schore, A. N. (2001a). The effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 7–66.
Schore, A. N. (2001b). The effects of relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 201–269.
Schore, A. N. (2003a). Affect dysregulation and disorders of the self. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Schore, A. N. (2003b). Affect dysregulation and the repair of the self. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Schore, A. N. (2009a). Relational trauma and the developing right brain: The neurobiology of broken attachment bonds in book relational trauma in infancy, Tessa Baradon, ED Routledge.
Schore, A. N. (2009b). Attachment trauma and the developing right brain: Origins. In P. Dell & J. O’Neil (Eds.), Dissociation and dissociative disorders (pp. 107–141). New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
Schore, J. R., & Schore, A. N. (2008). Modern attachment theory: The central role of affect regulation in development and treatment. Clinical Social Work Journal, 36, 9–20.
Shaver, P. R., & Hazan, C. (1993). Adult romantic attachment: Theory and evidence. In D. Perlman & W. Jones (Eds.), Advances in personal relationships (pp. 29–70). London, England: Kingsley.
Tatkin, S. (2005a, January–February). Marital therapy and the psychobiology of turning toward and turning away. The Therapist.
Tatkin, S. (2005b). Psybiological conflict management of marital couples. Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, 25(1), 20–22.
Tatkin, S. (2007). The pseudo-secure couple (aka false-self couple). Presented at the couple’s, Anaheim, California: Milton H. Erickson Foundation.
Trevarthen, C. (2001). The neurobiology of early communication: Intersubjective regulations in human brain development. In A. F. Kalverboer & A. Gramsbergen (Eds.), Handbook on brain and behaviour in human development (pp. 841–882). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Tronick, E. Z., & Weinberg, M. K. (1997). Depressed mothers and infants: Failure to form dyadic states of consciousness. In L. Murray & P. I. Cooper (Eds.), Postpartum depression in child development (pp. 54–81). New York: Guilford Press.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Margaret Rossoff and Allan Schore for their helpful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lapides, F. The Implicit Realm in Couples Therapy: Improving Right Hemisphere Affect-Regulating Capabilities. Clin Soc Work J 39, 161–169 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-010-0278-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-010-0278-1