The Editor’s Letter: Carrie Ruggieri
Editorial Announcement of Gerald Brooks’ poem ‘Father Hunger‘
Article One: Agency is Resilience in Action: Ben Susswein
Article Two: Finding, Forming and Transforming the Self: Annika Medbo
Article Three: An Ecology of Core Self Flourishing: Carrie Ruggieri
Article Four: “I can give you a bigger space” Transformation Starting from Core State: Jacquie Ye-Perman
The Editor’s Letter
Carrie Ruggieri
Download the PDF Here
The Core-Self issue offers four insightful articles, and a poem, exploring how AEDP facilitates the emergence of the flourishing core-self. The contributions examine this emergence within the contexts of development, healing, and, in Jacquie Ye-Perman’s article, broader cultural dynamics.
Both Ben Susswein and Annika Medbo draw inspiration from Eileen Russell’s (2021) work on the agentic self. The issue begins with Ben Susswein’s extensively researched article on the development and expression of human agency within attachment relationships. Susswein distinguishes resilient agency from resistant agency and incorporates Russell’s concept of “attuned disruption” alongside recognition processes to address and repair resistant agency. His exploration lays a foundational understanding of the role agency plays in flourishing.
We follow Susswein’s erudition on agency with Annika Medbo’s innovative approach on working with patients who have not yet developed an agentic core-self. She begins therapeutic work with these patients by joining them in their State 2 maladaptive state of ‘no-self’ and creates a relational bridge to adaptive State 2 functioning. Medbo’s interventions are represented by her wo new triangles of experience: The Triangle of Finding and Rescuing the Self and The Triangle of the Emerging Self.
My article follows Medbo’s, delving into an ecological model of recognition as central to the development of a flourishing core-self and to the therapeutic resolution of core-self hindrances. I highlight the role of core-state experiences that emerge after pivotal moments of therapeutic recognition and demonstrate how these experiences reinforce the flourishing core-self.
Finally, Jacquie Ye-Perman continues the discussion of core-state, reframing it not as an endpoint but as a state of readiness for deeper trauma work. Her clinical case study focuses on a Chinese client, illustrating AEDP’s cross-cultural applicability through its emphasis on affect and somatic processing. Ye-Perman highlights how core-state experiences set the stage for transformative growth and resilience, even in the context of profound trauma. I close this letter with a poem by Gerald Brooks, a beautiful encapsulation of the core themes explored in this issue’s articles. It is also a prelude to Brook’s work to be featured in an upcoming issue of Transformance.
Editorial Announcement
Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to present a preview – in the form of a poem – of Gerald Brooks’ 1 forthcoming article, The Echo of Absence: Father Hunger, the Inner Child, and the Weight of Silence which will be published in Transformance: The AEDP Journal, Volume 16, Issue 1, in early 2026.
Gerald’s scholarly work on incorporating Nigrescence Theory (Black identity development) into AEDP practice is a significant contribution to AEDP’s efforts to expand the therapeutic applications of trauma treatment beyond the family unit and into systemic societal traumas, such as racism. He has presented his approach to working with Black clients, as a Black therapist, in Immersion and Advanced Skills courses, in presentations titled, Unshackled Souls: A Braided Journey to Core State, Collective Liberation and Collective Empowerment.
He will be presenting Black Men Do Cry: The Transformational Tear, Father Wounds, and the Healing Power of AEDP at the April 2025 AEDP conference in NYC. Gerald is not only a talented and deeply thoughtful therapist but also a gifted poet. Below is his poem, Father Hunger, which we are proud to present in advance of his forthcoming publication in Transformance: The AEDP Journal.
Download the PDF here: Gerald Brook’s Poem, Father Hunger
Carrie Ruggieri, LMHC, BCETS
Editor, Transformance: The AEDP Journal
Article One: Agency is resilience in action: The role of recognition in transforming resistant agency to resilient agency
Ben Susswein
Download the pdf Here
Abstract: The concept of agency has recently been introduced into the conversation about attachment-based psychotherapy. Agency can be a manifestation of resilience, the intrinsic capacity of all living organisms to differentiate between what is beneficial and what is harmful. Although human agency is often equated with the expression of autonomous action, it also functions in the background to provide the relational safety required for autonomous functioning through receptivity and mutual recognition. Relational safety begins with attachment and evolves into varied forms of affiliation that provide security and entail the obligations and accountability that constrain autonomy. The resilient “self-at-best” might be characterized as a state of optimal balance between autonomy and accountability. Agency can also serve a “resistant” rather than resilient function for individuals who do not experience sufficient relational safety, operating in the service of a “false self” or the “self-at-worst.” Psychotherapeutic interventions can restore an adaptive balance between autonomy and relational safety. The relational safety that attachment-based treatment provides is necessary, but it is not a sufficient for healing when a client’s agency is compromised – when agency is resistant, inhibited or misdirected, and not resilient. “Attuned disruption” of resistant agency may be necessary to restore and support the resilient function of agency and promote transformance. Case vignettes illustrate the resistant use of agency in misdirecting desire, disguising capability, and sacrificing growth to preserve a sense of relational safety. Active and receptive modes of agency are considered with regard to the importance of mutual recognition in resilience and transformance.
Article two: Finding, Forming and Transforming the Self: A Journey From No Self to Core Self
by Annika Medbo
Download the pdf here
Abstract: This article presents my work with a patient whose sense of Self was profoundly unformed, necessitating extensive engagement within the realm of State 2 maladaptive affective experience. An AEDP’s guiding ethos – to create our interventions, moment-to- moment, by tracking the unfolding phenomenology – allowed me to innovate within the AEDP framework. In the course of my work with this client I devised two new triangles of experience: the Triangle of Finding and Rescuing the Self, and the Triangle of The Emerging Self. These triangles offer a conceptual visualization of the work primarily happening within maladaptive State 2 affective experience and in the process of moving from maladaptive affective experience into adaptive affective experience.
The theoretical framework in this article builds on Eileen Russell’s (2021) incorporation of agency, will, and desire as State 2 affective experiences. She proposes the idea that “neglect, exploitation, and oppression of any kind leave holes in the development of self” (p.244), a deficit that Fosha has similarly described as unformed experience (Fosha, 2013). I propose that when working with clients who present with an unformed Self, we must connect with our patient within the realm of State 2 maladaptive affect; it is there that we encounter the neglected split-off part of the Self, needing to be rescued. As was true for my patient, the maladaptive affective experience might be the (yet) only “road” to their inner emotional life. Without being recognized, witnessed, and felt in the presence of a safe ‘other’ the split-off divided self cannot be unified, and the True Self cannot form and transform. Simply said, the patient needs to know they have a Self and have a felt sense of that Self before they can feel about and for the Self.
Article Three: An ecology of Core Self flourishing: The predominant role of recognition in development and healing
by Carrie Ruggieri
Download the PDF here
Abstract. AEDP is rooted in ecological biology and affective neuroscience, emphasizing the inherent human propensity to flourish. The therapeutic approach assumes that the intact self, when sequestered in response to a hostile environment, can emerge when met with an attachment environment conducive to flourishing. Recognition-rich interactions create this environment and welcome the patient into it. At the core of AEDP’s framework is the concept of the Core Self, which can be divided into two dimensions: the neurobiological core self, innate and unchanging, and the experiencing core self, which adapts and evolves in response to the external environment. Recognition processes, ranging from fundamental reflexes to complex affirmations, underlie the sense of continuity and coherence for the Core-Self.
Recognition is explored from its conceptual origins in ecological biology and neuroscience to its application and elaboration by Fosha in AEDP theory and treatment. The role of recognition and benign mis-recognition in developing the agentic Core Self is examined, while pernicious mis-recognition is identified as a basis for dissociated self-states. Recognition is highlighted as a central mechanism for healing the fractured self. Recognition-rich, moment-to-moment tracking of somatic-affective experiences serves as a dual mechanism for processing trauma. Along with AEDP intra-relational interventions, it facilitates the integration of dissociated self-states. The article concludes with two case studies illustrating the effect of recognition-rich interactions to bring about core state and the felt-sense of a flourishing Core Self.
Article Four: “I can give you a bigger space” Transformation Starting from Core State: A cross cultural case study
H. Jacquie Ye-Perman
Download the PDF here
Abstract: This article is centers on two main points illustrated through a case study of my work with a Chinese client. The first point demonstrates how AEDP techniques inherently assist cross cultural work due to its focus on phenomenology, and its recognition of universal human strivings for safety, attachment and growth – all with their matching non-verbal, emotional/physiological markers. I will demonstrate how techniques of moment-to-moment tracking and metaprocessing, intuitively translated into deep and profound transformation for my Chinese client. The second point proposes that core state is a place for therapist to remain active, harnessing the momentum of change towards further transformation. Through session transcription, I will illustrate unique aspects of the treatment when a session begins in core state, highlighting how starting in core state shapes the work and accelerates readiness for another round of deep trauma work.