An attachment injury has been defined as a perceived betrayal, violation of trust, or abandonment in a critical moment of need. The injurious event is then used as a standard far the dependability of the other partner. Some events are obvious but other may appear trivial or exaggerated to an observer. Such events, if not resolved, can have a deleterious effect on the relationship bond and create impasses to relationship repair. Couples are often stuck in an attack-defend pattern and experience marital distress. A rational-empirical model of attachment injury resolution has been developed.
The goal of this study was two-fold: First, task analysis was used to measure in-session performances to confirm that the model discriminates resolved from non-resolved couples. Second, the goal was to relate the process of change model to outcome. Twenty-four couples received 13 weeks of Emotionally Focused Therapy to work on resolving an attachment injury. At the end of treatment, couples were identified as either resolved or non-resolved. Couples were identified as resolved only if they met three criteria: (1) couples' perspective, (2) therapist perspective, and (3) a clinical judge. Segments of first and best sessions were transcribed and rated on depth of experiencing and the structural analysis of social behavior. Resolved couples were found to be significantly more affiliative and achieved deeper levels of experiencing that non-resolved couples. In addition, dyadic satisfaction, relationship trust, forgiveness and pain were good predictors of attachment injury resolution. An important finding was that the non-resolved couples had more than one attachment injury. Both groups benefited from therapy in that they experienced significantly less anxiety from pre- to post treatment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/29138 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Makinen, Judy A |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 172 p. |
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