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Trisha’s Blog Posts
Attuned Psychotherapy
Have you ever felt that you were not being listened to, by a therapist, or even a by a friend?
In psychotherapy, attunement refers to the ability of your therapist to not just hear you, but to pick up on the nuances of your statements and to respond in a way that accurately captures the sense of how you were feeling in that moment. You feel seen. You feel heard. Even more than that, you feel as if your therapist experiences you!
As if experiencing one wasn’t bad enough, anxiety and depression often occur together! Depressed adults have a ‘comorbidity’ rate of 57% for any anxiety disorder, and youth have shown rates of anxiety and depression as high as 70%! 1
Depression and anxiety affect just about every aspect of your life, disrupting sleep, appetite, energy, feelings (sadness, emptiness, hopelessness), thinking, and it robs you of enjoying things you previously found to be pleasurable.
One of the factors that helps you get better in therapy is having someone that truly listens, or is “attuned” to what you are feeling and saying, both in words, expressions and body movements.
Attunement is found in parent (caregiver) / child relationships that are “securely attached.” People who have had secure attachments with their parent(s) tend to have good mental health, and are able to be secure attached to their children. Insecure attachment to a parent often causes serious mental health issues.
One way to turn that cycle around if you had an insecure attachment to a parent is to experience a secure attachment to your therapist. This helps you to feel valued and happier, and lets you connect with your own children and other adults.
1 Zahn Waxler, C. (2000). Internalizing problems of childhood and adolescence: Prospects, pitfalls, and progress in understanding the development of anxiety and depression. Development and Psychopathology, 12(3), 443-466.