About Working With Emotional Addiction

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I divide my work with emotional addiction into two global processes.

Global process 1.

Simple and quick, it consists of a glamor release process and a resource process.

- work with the image of the object of attachment, or liberation from glamor.

Usually, the image of the object of dependence occupies a significant part of the mental space, up to the merging and replacement of the image of the self of the person himself in the visual, auditory and kinesthetic modality. Removing the image of the addiction object from the VAK person in the direction of people who were emotionally significant in the past sharply reduces the sense of the addiction object's significance.

But here there is often a feeling of emptiness, one's own inability and other "delights" associated with the loss.

- resource resources.

Therefore, it is important to identify the criteria that the addiction satisfies.

A good "game" for this is where the client reconnects to the image of the dependency object and then removes it again.

At the same time, both positive and negative effects of addiction are manifested more clearly, but metaposition, assessment, and, therefore, choice and a sense of control appear to them.

The positive is usually the following:

involvement, security, stability, "feel big and strong", etc.

Having identified these needs, it is important to teach the client to satisfy them himself: to take from his experience and bring a state into the here and now plus / or with whom and how he can do it, with behavioral patterns, training, adjustment to the future.

It is important to go through this process with the client in one to two or three consultations.

This will give freedom and resources for deeper work, but it is advisable not to stop there.

Global process 2.

Here we are talking about standard psychotherapy: building contact, working with psychological trauma, family scenarios, communication techniques, cognitive distortions, and so on, based on a combination of the client's needs and my counseling skills.

I now prefer to work with injuries, one at a time. This resources a person, gives a feeling that he is in control, decides in his life, gains experience from situations, fills in the voids and discharges what is overflowing, enhances the feeling of his own strength.

At this stage, you can work on the basis of goals and objectives or until the client says "I have enough", which we usually agree on.