Tips on Creating a Safe Space for Imaginal Work
These tips on creating a safe space for practice were originally shared by a long-term Attachment Repair student in our Slack community.
I wanted to share my process and tips for building an imaginal safe space. I use this space as a foundation for all my attachment/schema work. Basically, that’s where I prepare for the ‘main’ work, and it’s a container and location for imagery. I also use it to hunker down when I feel anxious or overwhelmed, and sometimes to help me fall asleep.
The Schema Modes as They Relate to Attachment Styles
Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions. In this, I am drawing from Jeffrey Young’s work on schema therapy, and attachment theory more generally.
I believe that the attachment styles can be viewed as clusters of schemas and modes; schemas being beliefs about self and world, and the necessary behaviors (modes) that result from those beliefs. The modes represent the coherent behavioral manifestations of the schemas.
Insecure attachment is associated with impaired emotional self-regulation. The coping modes are those emotional regulation strategies that avoid “an even greater suffering”, as Bruce Ecker says.
