Stories with a Purpose: Family Attachment Narrative Therapy

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Stories with a Purpose Family Attachment
Narrative Therapy
Melissa Nichols, MA, LMFT
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FANT The Importance of the Narrative
The ability to use narratives or stories to
describe an experience, contemplate a scenario
and plan for the future is a unique quality of
the human race. It is through stories that
children learn cultural roles and expectations
and the meaning of concepts such as love, good
and evil, freedom and truth. As the child
develops the capacity for language and beings to
share thoughts and feelings with the parent, a
common perspective is shared and internalized.
This is the perspective that is retold in story
form with others and with self. When this
process does not take place, behavior tends to be
instinctive, impulsive and imitative. Although
thoughts are not always predictive of behavior,
the way we think is reflective in out action.
We are what we think. All that we are arises
with our thoughts, with our thoughts (stories)
we make the world. Dhammapada (Buddhist
Observation) Beware of the stories you tell
yourself For you will surely live them Cultural
Tales George Howard (1991) For as a man
thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 237
NKJV Bible

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FANT Theoretical Basis

• Theory
• Attachment disordered children have a
  self-defeating internal working model
• Problem behavior is often a reflection of this
  internal perspective
• This destructive perspective can be permanently
  shifted and healed
• The positive emotional connection (attunement)
  between a parent/child is innate and does not
  have to be taught.

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FANT Theoretical Basis

• Methodology
• Parents tell all the narratives
• Parents do all of the nurturing holding
• Holding is NOT used to work through intense
  emotions
• Intense emotions are addressed with EMDR

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FANT Theoretical Basis

• Narrative Themes
• Attachment bonding
• Trauma history
• Behavior change

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Attachment Program

• Diagnostic Interview
• Assessment
• Data Past Evaluations, Records, etc.
• Observational
• Staff Coordination

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Attachment Program

• Intensive Structure
• Lead Therapist/Play Therapist
• Time length frequency
• Assessments
• Attachment Worksheet recommendations
• Final Report
• Follow-up Assessments

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Activating Parental Attunement

• Rather than assuming the role as expert, the task
  of the therapist is to facilitate the parents
  innate ability to attune to their childs
  internal process. This means that the therapist
  elevates the parent to the status of expert in
  identifying components of their childs
  perspective or internal working model. This
  process begins as the therapist employs an
  affirming, inquiring, questioning method of
  eliciting the parents intuitive knowledge of the
  childs motivating thoughts and emotions.

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Activating Parental Attunement

• Parents experience
• Childs background
• What would your child be like if you had started
  out together?
• Childs thoughts and feelings

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• Shifting
• Inner Working Model
• with Narratives

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Why Do Stories Work?

• Stories are culturally universal and timeless
• Organizes memories and gives meaning to life
  (coherent narrative)
• Stories promote neural integration of thinking
  and feeling
• Stories channel a different perspective of life
  events--Change the story, change self
  understanding

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Constructing Stories

• Setting
• Props
• Perspective
• Hero
• Message

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Types of Narratives

• Claiming
• Developmental
• Trauma
• Successful Child

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Claiming Narratives

• Strengthens emotional bond
• Facilitates trust
• Establishes birth order
• Extended family
• Passes on traditions, history, rituals

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Developmental Narratives

• Facilitates cognitive development
• Enhances emotional regulation
• Builds relationships
• Remedial skill building

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Narrative Themes

• From the first, you were a child that deserved to
  be loved and cared for by parents you could trust.

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Trauma Narratives

• Heals pain of trauma
• Creates empathy
• Fosters understanding

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Narrative Themes

• Even though you experienced abuse, abandonment,
  neglect, you deserved to be loved and cared for
  by responsible parents.

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Successful Child Narratives

• Teaches values
• Reinforces cause and effect thinking
• Presents alternative behaviors
• Explains basics of How To Do life

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Narrative Themes

• Your problem behavior does not define your value
  and we will be there to love and support you as
  you make changes.

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Additional Resources

• Parenting with Stories Creating a foundation of
  attachment for parenting your child (Nichols,
  Lacher May, 2002)
• Connecting with Kids (Lacher, Nichols, May,
  2006)
• First Steps for Strengthening Adoptive Families
  (DVD Study Guide)
• Website www.familyattachment.com

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Supporting Research

• Bower, G.H. Morrow, D. G. (1990). Mental
  Models in Narrative Comprehension. Hillsdale,
• NJ Lawrence-Erlbaum.
• In order to make sense of a narrative or story,
  there must be an identification with a
  protagonist which allows a here and now
  perspective to be adopted. In doing so, the
  narrative has the capacity to travel back and
  forward in time and space, thus allowing the
  message to become immediately relevant.
• Charon, J.M. (1985). Symbolic Interactionism
  An Introduction, Interpretation, and Integration.
  Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall.
• The process of verbally interacting with self and
  others is essential in the development of the
  ability to evaluate present behavior and plan for
  change in the future.
• Osofsky, J.D. (1993). Applied Psychoanalysis
  How research with infants and adolescents at
  high psychosocial risk informs psychoanalysis.
  Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association,
  41, 193-207.
• The inability to form a coherent strategy to
  ensure protection from the caregiver has been
  identified in the narratives of maltreated
  children. Children exposed to disruption and
  family violence typically construct an
  incoherent, chaotic life narrative.
• Pynoos, R.S., Steinberg, A.M., Goenjian, A.
  (1996). Tramatic Stress in Childhood and
  Adolescence Recent Developments and Current
  Controversies. In B.A. van der Kolk A.C.
  McFarlane (Eds.) Traumatic Stress (pp. 331-358).
  New York Guilford Press.
• When faced with a frightening situation, the
  inability to contemplate a solution seems to
  retard developmental accomplishments and
  interfere with successful processing of
  subsequent traumatic events.

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Supporting Research

• Siegel, D.J. (1999). The Developing Mind toward
  a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience. New
  York Guilford Press.
• Parent-child reflective dialogue that identifies
  the mental state that fuels behavior,
  perceptions, intentions, goals, beliefs and
  desires seem to promote both secure attachment
  and the integrative process of co-construction of
  narratives.
• Solomon, J. George, C., DeJong, A. (1995).
  Children Classified as Controlling at Age Six
  Evidence of Disorganized Representational
  Strategies and Aggression at Home and School.
  Development and Psychopathology. 7, 447-464.
• Securely attached children typically tell stories
  in which the child protagonist struggles, finds a
  solution and ultimately lives happily ever after.
• Zwaan, R. A. (1999). Situation Models The
  mental Leap into Imagined Worlds. Current
  Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 15-18.
• The experience of narrative is the same as being
  in or observing the real situation.
• The Innate Quality of Attunement
• George, C. Solomon, J. (1999). Attachment and
  Caregiving The Caregiving Behavioral System. In
  J. Cassidy P. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of
  Attachment Theory, Research and Clinical
  Applications (pp. 649-670). New York Guilford
  Press.
• In order to ensure survival, the parent is
  biologically driven to provide care and
  protection in the same way the child seeks
  proximity in order to be cared for and protected
  by the caregiver. Just as the infant is
  physiologically comforted when the parent is
  available, the mother experiences strong emotions
  of pleasure and satisfaction when she is able to
  provide protection and heightened anger, sadness
  or despair when her ability to be available to
  her child is threatened.

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Supporting Research

• Support
• Crockenberg, S.B. Infant Irritability, Mother
  responsiveness, and Social Support Influences on
  Security of Infant-Mother Attachment. Child
  Development 52, 857-865.
• FANT
• May, J.C. (2005). Family Attachment Narrative
  Therapy Healing the Experience of Early
  Childhood Maltreatment. Journal of Marital and
  Family Therapy, 31, 221-237.
• Parenting Resources
• Bailey, B.A. (2000). I Love You Rituals. New
  York Harper.
• Glasser, H. N. Easley, J.L. (1999).
  Transforming the Difficult Child The Nurtured
  Heart Approach. Tucson, AZ Center for the
  Difficult Child.
• Jernberg, A.M. Booth, P.B. (1997). Theraplay
  Helping Parents and Children Build Better
  Relationships Through Attachment Based Play (2nd
  ed.) San Francisco Jossey Bass.
• Kranowitz, C.S. Miller, L.J. (2006). Out of
  Sync Child Recognizing and Coping with Sensory
  Processing Disorder. New York Perigree.
• Nelson, J. (2006). Positive Discipline . New
  York Ballantine.

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• Family Attachment Center
• 18322C Minnetonka Blvd
• Deephaven, MN 55391
• 952-475-2818
• www.familyattachment.com