Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Guest: Mark Linington

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Guest: Mark Linington · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:04
  Today's guest is Mark Linnington from London. I will introduce him in a moment, but I wanted to share that I first heard him present at the ISSTD virtual conference this year in 2020. It was the first time that not only did I hear about attachment and why it was important, but I saw how the process of attachment works and explained everything that I've been struggling to find words for for the last year or two years or likely longer than that about not just what's important about attachment or why that's a part of who we are, but the actual process of what that is and what it looks like. We talk about this during the interview including applying it to an example of a friendship that we've made over the last year. I also want to explain that this interview was recorded in my new office at work and at the beginning of the interview an alarm clock went off.
• 2:07
  I wanted to explain so that it doesn't trigger anyone, but it's really kind of funny because with my cochlear implants, it took me a moment to identify what the sound was and then even longer to realize it was in my office and not in his office. And then because with cochlear implants I cannot tell where sound comes from it took me longer even to find where the alarm clock was because my office was new and I'm not oriented to it yet And it was only a complete fluke that the alarm was even set much less that it went off during the interview. So my apologies because I couldn't edit it out, but it was really kind of funny as long as you're not triggered by the sound. So I wanted you to know that it's coming up. That being said, it was a delightful conversation with him, and I'm so grateful that he came on to speak not just about his knowledge, but to explore with me what that looks like in everyday living as a survivor.
• 3:05
  So let me introduce him. Mark Linnington is an attachment based psychoanalytic psychotherapist with the Bowlby Center and the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London in The United Kingdom. From 2013 to 2018, he was chair of the executive committee at the Bowlby Center where he continues to work as a training therapist, clinical supervisor and teacher he worked for twelve years in the nhs as a psychotherapist with children and adults with intellectual disabilities who experience complex trauma and abuse he also worked as a psychotherapist for several years at a secondary school in London for young people with special needs, including autism, ADHD, and other intellectual disabilities. He has written a number of papers and book chapters about his clinical work and presented papers on attachment theory in clinical practice at a number of conferences including in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Paris. He's clinical director and CEO at the clinic for dissociative studies in London, where he is a specialist consultant psychotherapist and supervisor working with people with dissociative identity disorder.
• 4:20
  He works in private practice with children, adults, and families, providing supervision to individuals and groups and trainings to organizations. Welcome, Mark Linnington.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So, my name is Mark Linnington. I'm the CEO and clinical director at the clinic for dissociative studies, which is based in London. And we work with people with dissociative disorders, mostly with DID. Were funded by the NHS. So we applied for money for individuals, so each individual is funded for psychotherapy, usually with a support therapist as well to help in between sessions and sometimes with a a support worker.
• 5:13
  I'm trained as a an attachment based psychoanalytic psycho psychotherapist. I trained at the Bolby Centre in London, and I've worked in different sorts of work, a lot of work with people with intellectual disabilities or learning disabilities disabilities in schools for young people with special needs as a psychotherapist and in a private practice as well.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the podcast. We have talked a lot about attachment on the podcast, and I saw your presentation at the virtual ISSTD conference.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And wanted to specifically. How how do you describe dissociation?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. So I I think of it in terms of the people that we work with is where they've experienced terrible trauma, usually abusive trauma, usually involving caregivers, sometimes in an organized way involving a involving a a bigger group, sometimes just involving people within the family. And dissociation is really a way of being able to cope with that in in my view, where part of the self and the self in relationship is segregated off often in a way that is to do with a particular traumatic experience. So often the the people that we're working with have younger identities who are still frozen in a particular time and place and experiencing the trauma. It's not always exactly like that for people, but that's often the case that the child part of them, to put it like that, is often very frightened and in a state of of trauma.
• 7:35
  And one of difficulties with people experiencing dissociation in that way is there isn't necessarily much, if any, communication between different parts of the self. So sometimes sometimes people might have a a self that can really function very well in the world and manage life, but there are these distressed child parts of them that are sometimes not known, known, but sometimes causing almost like an interference with life because they keep emerging, and their trauma story has really not been heard, and the person is unaware of these aspects of themselves. So that that's often a form where we come across dissociation, but sometimes the dissociative dissociative barriers between the different identities are are more permeable, and there's more communication between cells. And often someone is dealing with a lot of conversation going on inside themselves, sometimes with a lot of emotion, finds that very difficult because a maybe a younger part of themselves is trying to communicate something or perhaps a a more adolescent seeming part of themselves is living a life that doesn't really fit in with the person's main life, their functional life, if you like, and that causes a lot of distress and difficulty for them.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: That was a wonderful explanation of dissociation, dissociation, and I love the layers of it. Thank you. How would you describe or explain attachment in a very introductory sort of way?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: So I think attachment is concerned really with care seeking and how the care seeking approach is towards the the caregiver. So care seeking means any looking for help. So if one thinks about, say, a young child about how who they might look to for help, they might look to their their parents or their carers, and they might make an approach. They might approach them physically. They might say something to them verbally that is about asking for help.
• 10:04
  And I think in a secure relationship, that process works very well of seeking care from a caregiver. The caregiver is available and responsive to the person and meets their needs in some ways, and I suppose as they get older, helps them meet their their own needs, maybe in a more autonomous sort of way. And then once those care seeking needs are met, so once a person has got the help they require, they then become more exploratory. So they can engage in something in the world in an exploratory way, whether that's an interest or a relationship. So sometimes one way I use to think about it is if one imagines that one's a parent or carer in the playground with with a a child, and the child is climbing on the climbing frame, and they fall off, and they hurt themselves.
• 11:07
  And they run to the caregiver, and the caregiver gives them a hug and looks after their hurt knee, and then they feel better, and then they run back out into the playground and they carry on playing. And that's an example of a secure attachment system where they're able to get the help and then go back to play or explore in the world in some way. So then there are some examples which I'm sure some some people will will already know about about insecure attachment where that doesn't go as well. So the child runs towards the parent in a hurt or distressed state, and the parental carer dismisses them and says, oh, don't bother about that. Don't bother about your hurt knee.
• 11:55
  Just go out and play again. And the child then may develop if that's repeated many times, and that becomes a sort of pattern of relating between them, a an avoidant way of being. So they learn to manage their hurt knee on their own. So actually, the child may run off and and look like they're going and playing with their hurt knee even though they've received no comfort from the the parent. And Bobbie, John Bobbie talked about that as being a sort of pseudo independence.
• 12:29
  So someone who is engaged out in the world because their the dismissiveness of their caregiver means that they can't get their needs met, and they need to, in a way, almost regulate them for the caregiver. And then there's another pattern, another insecure pattern, which is the the preoccupied and anxious ambivalent pairing so that the child is anxious when they hurt themselves, and it's like they can't be comforted. And they may even have some anger, so the child runs towards the parent and clings on to them, and the parent is not really addressing their need because they're more preoccupied with their own needs, and so the child's needs somehow don't get met, and they can't leave the parents. They keep clinging on. Sometimes the one of the videos that I remember seeing on my training, which I was very struck by, was the child who runs towards the parent, clings on to them in a really strong way, and then leans back and slaps the parent around the face.
• 13:41
  And there's that sort of mixture of, are you addressing my needs, or aren't you addressing my needs is is is unclear to the child, and they're very anxious about it. And then there's, I suppose, the form of insecure attachment, which is more linked to issues of dissociation and dissociative identity disorder, which is disorganized attachment. I've thought about that in two main ways. One is about where there's frightened or frightening caregiver that the child is scared to approach, and they are very hesitant in their approach, and they may even turn away from them again. That the parent or carer may shout at the child, or they may be frightened by the hurt that they see the child experiencing, and they don't know how to deal with it.
• 14:36
  So it's a very unsuccessful meeting there, and the child has to find a way to cope with their their distress. And I think sometimes my experience with people with what what might what might describe as a disorganized attachment is that you see a mixture of avoidant sort of strategies of not going towards the caregiver to get their needs met, but also the more anxious ambivalent ones are clinging on. And I think with people with dissociative identity disorder that sometimes the different identities have different ways of attaching.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: What I loved about what you shared now and at the conference was how this shows so many more layers to it. Because before, I had the traditional lectures in grad school about attachment, and I had studied some more about attachment because Peter Barish is a friend of mine that I've met through the podcast and he had linked attachment with dissociative disorders and I had been aware of those things and we had talked on the podcast about the mammal brain and the reptilian brain and the turning towards and running away and how there's that because you can't I knew those pieces, but you really showed me what it looks like to try to turn towards and what it looks like trying to get away and what it looks like when you're trying to do both. Yes. And you've just described it so well. And then one more piece that I just is a small feedback that I noticed while you were talking was that I think it's one of the reasons that survivors sometimes feel so crazy.
• 16:34
  It's not just about hearing voices or alters or different parts of them, it's that I cannot relate to normal people in normal ways and how how do I navigate that? And we can talk about that later but but you really just explained it to me of there's really not this consistent pattern where I know by experience if I do this, someone will respond to me like this.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. And I think the the the thing I would I would add to that thinking about what you're saying there is what it's making me think about is that the issue then is you don't get what would have called and and other other people working to to think about attachment theory would call goal termination. So you don't one doesn't get the experience of having a goal to be helped in care seeking, and then the care seeking system terminating, so stopping. You stop care seeking, and you go back to playing.
• 17:44
  And then what people, survivors, are having to deal with there is like a constant running of the care seeking system, and how do they deal with that? The sort of constant feeling of distress in which isn't being met, the need that that the care seeking stopping so the person can get on with other things in their life, and whether DID is in in a way a solution to that. Because in the background, one might have distressed child identity who is just constantly distressed, but that can't somehow be helped. And so a rule is put up to enable the person to be able to live a good enough quality of life if people are lucky enough to be to be able to do it in that way.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: I know this is so simplified, I'm so sorry, but I can just almost get my hands on, like it's almost tangible for me for the first time where can almost literally touch it in an object relations kind of way. Like I can almost hold on to what you're saying in that I even see the relational trauma aspects of it where the dissociative parts. This one really is about when we can respond to this kind of caregiving and it's also given. And this one is when we are seeking this kind of caregiving and it's not coming or these different parts. I can see that layer in it in a different way, in a sort of a three d model kind of way that I hadn't noticed before.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. I suppose that's what I was trying to show something about with the intragram idea, which is like an internal genogram, which I know many people with DID. I mean, I've really learned from the the people that I've worked with who often had ways of representing their internal worlds that I found very interesting. And it it just struck me that one can see some of these attachment dynamics happening in in relationship to the the person's internal world of an internal caregiver, a a care seeker that isn't being met, someone that is engaged in interest sharing or interest as a way of coping with distress, so has run back to the climbing frame because the the parent wasn't successful in soothing them. Those sorts of things going on in the internal world really interests me, because then I think I can begin to think about what does this person really need, and and obviously that means addressing all different parts of them in some way, but these different parts having different needs as to who they need me to be, and my the the the sort of multiple aspects of myself being very important in that, I think.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I want to come back to entrograms again later, but this this piece is is significant, I think, in the in just the context for the podcast and some self disclosure. Podcast and some self disclosure.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I've got my first friend that I've ever had, and I've had a friend for a whole year, which for me is a big deal.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yes. I'm sure. Yeah.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And there have been other good and safe people in my life, especially in more recent years, the healthier I get and the better I get. But I think what's made her a close friend increased safety so much for her is just simply the degree of responsiveness. So Right. I don't it's not that I'm an attention seeking kind of person or that I'm a needy kind of person. I'm in fact, someone told me last week compulsively self reliant.
• 21:45
  Like, I'm still learning how to reach out and connect. Right?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But any attempt I made with this particular friend, she responded quickly every time.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And even when it was not about needing anything, just I'm sharing this piece of me, something came out, very quickly she responded. And at first it was very unnerving, but over time that consistency and constancy provided something I didn't even know I needed. And it's been fascinating to watch it unfold.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: And is that if if it's okay to ask about that, because it it it interests me from the the point of view at the circle of security is that if there's enough security in the bottom half of the circle, so in other words, if the care seeking, caregiving experience is good enough, and that might be that it's good enough in later life, say through therapy, if one has a good enough experience experience there, one begins to be able to explore in the world. And one of the important aspects of exploration is the development of peer relationships. So I'm interested in your description of the friend is do you think there's a sort of mutuality to it, or do you think it's that they're functioning more as a a sort of care giver to you at times when you're in need if that's not too personal a thing to ask?
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: No. That's a perfect question, and I think it's a really good example because I was not looking for friends. I did not want friends, but I absolutely was in a several years long solid therapeutic relationship with a good therapist who knew what she was doing and took good care of me and who was helping and it was a positive experience and I met this friend because we both had children in the hospital.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Had different illnesses. So it wasn't it was very it unfolded very quickly, but it was not something I saw out intentionally. As it unfolded, because I had the safety of the therapist sort of prompting me and encouraging me and a solid base to come from to the bottom part of the circle, I was able to go out and explore a little bit and come back and process. We met for this first time and this is what happened and here's what we talked about and and and practicing and coming back and then going and trying again. And it has been very mutual.
• 24:26
  And that's the other thing because our initial friendship unfolded because we had this shared experience of medically fragile children. Then we found other things in common as well. And it has been very gentle and very careful and very well balanced. So I think for the first time, other than my husband maybe, but but for the very first time, I am taking care of her as much as she is taking care of me. Right.
• 24:58
  It is very healthy. It's not toxic. We've shared even some things from our past, from childhood abuse, but not in a overwhelming or trauma dumping or triggering way, just very safely and carefully over time. And it's just knitted together like a rope.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Well, that sounds sounds really important and and such a good thing. And I'm making a a link, I I suppose, in my mind with the you remember maybe from my talk about where I talked about the McCluskey model developed by Eunah McCluskey, which had really come out of the work with Dorothy Heard and Brian Lake, which was adding in the interest sharing system and thinking about its relationship to the care seeking, caregiving systems. And the idea being that actually if if the care seeking and caregiving was working well enough, that that's what allows all of us to engage in more interest sharing, whether that's sharing about a common thing like illness that are around your children or some other aspect of sharing. And so I'm really interested in how that system, the interest sharing aspect works in relationship to the experience of care seeking and caregiving. And I suppose in working with people therapeutically, that's one of the things I'm looking at with them is how it is that.
• 26:45
  Are there any signs of that developing, of them feeling more secure with that and becoming more exploratory as a good outcome from the the therapy.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: How would you explain security?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: So that if people can imagine it, the circle of security is an idea and that there is a book about that intervention, and one of the things I've been interested in is how to think use it to think about psychotherapy, and I found it very useful. And it's about it's a circle in which it shows how the child or the adult approaches the caregiver, meets them as a safe haven, feels comforted. So that's what's called the bottom half of the circle, and then the top half of the circle is about having a secure base that you can return to at times of need and going out into the world and exploring things like interest sharing with peers and developing romantic relationships, developing a new sort of attachment relationship that isn't just about care seeking and caregiving, but is also about this more mutual sharing. And that if things are secure, that one moves around the circle. So when one is out in the world exploring, if something distressing happens, you go back into the bottom half of the circle and approach the caregiver, receive comfort, and then feel some like you've been met in some way, and then go off to explore, interest, share, engage in your romantic relationships.
• 28:34
  But of course, people who've had traumatic and abusive backgrounds still develop romantic relationships, still develop friendships. That that can be the case. But my observation is if there's insecurity that isn't hasn't had an opportunity to be addressed that is going on from the bottom half of the circle, it tends to mean that the top half of the circle is used in a care seeking, caregiving way. So what you were saying about how you're not really needy and seeking attention from from this person, I think if if that had been the issue within your attachment relationship that hadn't been dealt with, maybe that would have been replicated more in your peer relationships. That seems to be something in that area to me is that if the insecurity isn't addressed, we're more likely to repeat things.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And in this friendship, it's fascinating that it's so literal because Mhmm. We both even though we have shared the same hospital for our children, we live several hours apart. And so we come together in this very specific contained experience and then go back to our own spaces. And so we process and then come back again literally and then go back in process.
• 30:00
  And so it's almost been an acting out of that for both of us and learning and growing because of it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. Do you think it's significant that the interest that you're sort of meeting room that is allowing your friendship is around caregiving. Do you think that's a significant part of it rather than, I don't know, an interesting art or something like that, that's something that's more distant from the self? Do you think that's an important part of that development?
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: That's a good question. I think it is that we would not have done it for ourselves, but we are willing to do it for our children.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Because it mattered to our children. Our both of our children had incidents of basically dying in the hospital or having CPR for an extended amount of time and being told that they would not be coming back from that and then they did and the children themselves remember. They're little, little, like three.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And, but the children themselves remember this experience and they only talk about it with each other. And because that has been such an important relationship with them and that's not what they talk about all the time but if they talk about remem what they remember about that day, they only talk about it to the other one. Right. And so it's a very important friendship amongst the children. And so I think we were both brave for our children in a way we would not have been for ourselves initially.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: In my mind, that links to Una McCluskey's idea of a a keystone system. In other words, that one of these different systems, whether it might be care seeking, it might be caregiving, interest sharing, sexuality, that that one of these systems is a way we help ourselves to feel more secure in the world, and it's the system that sort of comes to the front. And very often that seems to me to be caregiving is a way of making connections with others, where many people feel more secure. I mean one can see it in that I see it in myself as a psychotherapist, is caregiving is obviously very important to me, and my my interest is all about caregiving in a very particular way. So I find that interesting and how that then relates to what one's earlier experiences of care seeking caregiving have been, about how one adopts the the caregiving and looking after others as a way of feeling secure in the world.
• 32:53
  I've I've worked with a few people who've had sort of traumatic pasts and are struggling with things, but they've got quite a strong caregiving part of them, so they may be engaged in an occupation, for example as a doctor or even as a psychotherapist, that where that that's a way to have I suppose more health and more sense of security in oneself.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I often share very carefully and not in a trauma dumping way, but on the podcast a bit of a personal story. And so that's not uncommon for the podcast, but I didn't mean to invade your time. It's been so helpful. And so I
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: think It's interesting.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It makes makes it more concrete for them to understand and for us to process. The caregiving idea that you suggest is interesting because one of the quote shared interests that we would have both my friends and I in our past as children is we both had an older sister that protected us in some ways, but then we lost in different ways. Oh. And then also had a sibling that we both were sort of responsible for caring for and keeping safe, but also lost them as they got older in different ways.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Right. Yes. That's interesting. I think it's something I I'm still thinking about and don't I can feel that it's very significant as sibling relationships. And how do sibling relationships so if one was going to include them in, say, thinking in in terms of the circle of security and trying to understand a person in that way, where would sibling relationships fit into that?
• 34:49
  Would they be in the caregiving way? Would it allow for you know, you described two things there where you're both being a caregiver and being cared for, and also of course there's the peer dimension to sibling relationships that can sometimes be there. So I think the protective and helpful nature of sibling relationships when one of when there are difficulties with one's parents or caregivers is is a really interesting area that I I'm I'm still thinking about, developing my thinking about that.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: How would you explain integrams? We can go back to that. And it was for for listeners, integrams are a very specific sort of mapping process, but it's different than other mapping ideas that I've seen. It's not about where the altars are in the internal world or even just who we know or how long they've been there. It's really about how they're interacting with each other and how they're interacting externally.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Yes. That that's right. So it's I suppose it looks a little bit like a genogram, and it's an attempt to try and particular way about the nature of the the relationships, to think about how they fit into this attachment based systems model. So it's really come from my experience with a particular person I found her really interesting to work with and was very interested in in quite a common phenomenon, I suppose, where there's a sort of parental figure inside, and there's a sort of a childlike figure inside and what their relationship is like. And for this woman, what I noticed was there was a lot of hostility initially, but actually, I would and my first response was to want to protect the more vulnerable seeming part of her and to sort of set talk to the parental side of her and say, you know, I'm not sure that's a very good way of talking to this other part of you.
• 37:15
  I don't know that that that's really very helpful. So I found myself sort of trying to get in between them almost and provide some protection. But then I I started to talk with this parental part about what she was trying to do and why she might be trying to do that. And in the way that one might with a real parent is by helping them sort of know more about their narrative and understand more about what their feelings towards the child are, that the relationship improves. And of course there's a the the the caregiving figures in this woman's real past have have been awful.
• 38:01
  They've been an awful experience, and and a lot of the way that she treats herself on the inside is a repetition of how she's being treated externally. I imagine many people are familiar with that sort of experience. So making links to, I wonder, you know, where did you learn to be that sort of caregiver from? How where's that come from? Has an understanding the story from that perspective about how she's being treated has been very useful, and has led to much more compassionate relationship inside and a lowering of hostility, and even where they have arguments for those to be more relational and less about dominance and submission, which seem to be key theme.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: How do survivors make that shift from it's about being about dominance or time out or whatever the power issue is and more about relational and care giving. Like, know at the ISSTD conference, Christine Forner spoke about meeting the need of the wound, like offering actual care. What what else shifts into relational interactions, whether it's internal or you're learning it externally, what shifts from not knowing how to do it into being that attuned caregiver for yourself or for others?
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Well, with her, I think it's the it's I mean, it's been a few things, I'm sure. I think something is about what I model as a therapist in terms of caregiving. I think so I think that's probably had some impact. Impact. But I think a key thing is about has been about me establishing an empathic connection with the caregiving part of her as she is.
• 40:01
  So as she she was in this often furious shouting, you do what I say, very controlling part of her, and to try and think about the fear that might underlie that. Just remembering that that idea from attachment theory about in disorganized attachment, it is the frightened or frightening caregiver that that is that causes an awful lot of difficulty for the child, and being able to try and think about the fear or at least recognize it in the first place, I think has has been important. And also to talk about her history, about when she came into being, when she first started taking on this role of caregiver, what was going on in her real external world that led to that, what what she thinks to try and develop her ability to reflect, what does she think the impact of her way of caregiving is likely to be on on this other part of her. And I think it has to be a relational endeavor in this, but by that I mean, and and this is really right up to where we are in the work at the moment, is I've been trying to encourage both parts of her to come forward to talk together about their their relationship rather than just focusing on the caregiver is to look at their interaction together, and we're just starting to do that.
• 41:50
  And then there are other internal relationships where we're starting to work initially in pairs to think about how do you get on and what is so difficult about the interactions, because there are all sorts of difficult internal interactions which which cause a lot of problems for her. So I think I think that those have been some of the key key things. I don't know whether I've quite got them all in.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I love that understanding how the process works and how hard the child is trying to navigate so many different pieces offers some compassion to yourself. And I love that understanding how the process works gives an opportunity cognitively and emotionally connect some of those pieces that we've experienced, but didn't understand why it felt the way we did or why we thought what we did, either about other people or about ourselves, and how it united that a bit. Like it it was a very, to use such a triggering word, it was a very integrative experience to see it laid out on paper and what the process was of what's happening, not just that this happened to us or they said this or I felt this, but to see the process and to be present in that and to hold that has helped me practice not just internally but also with my children differently. It's changed a bit of my parenting, so thank you for that. And it offers hope for healing in this diagnosis that sometimes feels so daunting and so difficult to get through and endure, much less heal.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Yes. And I found it helpful with people because it really I mean, one of the criticisms that has sometimes been made of attachment theory is that although it was it was really important about the recognition of real things that happen to people in the external world, that's that's where their internal world comes from. So that I think was important point about attachment theory. But one of the criticisms of attachment theory is that beyond the idea of internal working models, there isn't much language if one compares it to, say, the language of object relations, that there isn't much language for thinking in an attachment based way about the internal world. And I thought this was an interesting idea because maybe allows a bit of space for that that development.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. I agree. Is there anything else that we've left out that I know we covered so many different areas, but is there anything else you would like to share before I let you go?
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: No, don't think so. I mean, I found this such an interesting conversation, Emma. I'm really well, I'm honored to to that you invited me. I'm I'm really pleased about that.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so grateful really for your time and for your sharing and even your flexibility. I had no idea we were going to talk about my friendship, but it was such a it appreciate using the example to understand what we're talking about and see how it plays out.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. I thought that was good. Yeah.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm so honored to meet you, and I really appreciate your time.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank thanks, everyone. I'm really glad to have met you as well.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemsbeat.com. We'll see you there.