Volume 13, Issue 1: The Core Self
The Editor’s Letter: by Carrie Ruggieri
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.
Scroll down to access this issue’s articles
Father Hunger
By Gerald Brooks
An insatiable fact, as the boy opens his eyes,
where does he look? Not yet understanding
these eyes will know pain—
searching for the father and his embrace.
The world instructs the father, unconsciously,
to be distant, to be tough.
But must we lose that tender nature,
those body responses to comfort and emotion,
in the name of toughness?
It becomes a challenge
for fathers to raise their sons
when the world has ripped
the very nature of emotion from them,
leaving them defended followers—
distant from heart and flesh.
But fathers, teach your sons to be themselves,
to feel without shame, and to rise without fear.
Show them what is possible—
that they can find their way,
and still know they have your hand upon their shoulder,
a support that endures, even in their becoming.
For when we starve our sons of emotion,
we feed the animal within—
the rage that prowls the underbelly of life,
locked within the cage of unspoken pain.
It becomes a weight, wielded outwardly,
and turns inwardly to a life left locked,
when the awareness of emotion is withheld,
when the hunger is denied and unmet.
As men, we must acknowledge this truth:
the hunger for a father’s connection remains
deep and unsatisfied if one has been starved
or poorly nourished in that bond.
Yet, even where absence or distance has been,
there is still time to heal—
for it is never too late to reach, to mend,
to offer and accept what was once missing.
And fathers, remember—
connection does not mean perfection.
Strive instead to tame that hunger—
to heal what you may not have received,
and to honor your journey towards awareness.
For connection is an ongoing art,
and even the smallest gestures
can begin to fill the aching spaces
where absence once dwelled.
Download the PDF: Editor’s letter and Father Hunger by Gerald Brooks HERE
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Gerald Brooks, LMSW, SAP, CAADC is an AEDP therapist, working with children, adolescents and adults in Michigan. He is a presenter at AEDP training courses.
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Article One:
Agency is resilience in action: The role of recognition in transforming resistant agency to resilient agency.
by Ben Susswein
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.
Introduction and overview
We want to fit in, and we want to stand out. We want to feel the safety of connection to others and at the same time the thrill of autonomy. As Shunryu Suzuki, Buddhist master and master of the Zen one-liner, observed, “If it doesn’t sound like a paradox it probably isn’t true.” While attachment theory has displaced psychoanalytic drive theory as a more useful model of human motivation, attachment is only one aspect of what motivates us. Relational safety is a necessary but often not sufficient condition for emotional healing and growth. Human existence requires maintaining a balance between the need for autonomy and the need for relatedness in order to assert our independence and also enjoy the security of connection to others. The term “agency” is often employed to refer to actions that are assertions of independence, particularly in contexts where human interdependence is insufficiently acknowledged and appreciated. Human development has often been mischaracterized as a linear process of increasing autonomy, not the ongoing interplay of individuality and affiliation. But perhaps the “relational turn” in psychodynamic thinking, and the emphasis on relational safety, of which attachment theory is a prime example, was an overcorrection. …
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Ben Susswein Ph.D. is a psychotherapist in private practice working with individuals, couples and families. Address correspondence to: Ben Susswein, Ph.D. 36 Park Street, Montclair N.J. 07042.
Email: bensusswein@gmail.com.
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Article two:
Finding, Forming and Transforming the Self: A Journey From No Self to Core Self
by Annika Medbo
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.
Introduction
This article draws on a decade of experience using AEDP when working with the deepest forms of attachment trauma, specifically, the trauma of deep neglect. This type of trauma results in a state of emotional isolation bereft of a felt sense of Self, of other, and of existing as oneself in the world. In the emotionally isolated patient, though a patient is estranged from a sense of self, this Self does exist. This True Self resides as the neurobiological core self (Fosha, 2013; 2021), but for relationally traumatized clients it is out of reach. This is because the neurobiological core self can only be accessed and felt in the context of relational safety: …
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Annika Medbo, L.P., is a licensed psychotherapist and licensed physiotherapist. She is an adjunct faculty
member of the AEDP Institute, and an AEDP certified supervisor and therapist. She has a private practice in Stockholm, Sweden. Address correspondance to annika@medbo.se.
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Article Three:
An ecology of Core Self flourishing: The predominant role of recognition in development and healing
by Carrie Ruggieri
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.
Introduction: On flourishing, recognition, and beauty
Just as the restoration of frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel allowed the original splendor of Michelangelo’s masterpieces to shine again, AEDP seeks to restore humanity to its original beauty. I reflected on how our innate human tendencies towards rightness, truthfulness, self-compassion and compassion for others, are covered by layers of defenses due to trauma, but are unconcealed through AEDP’s transformation process. The AEDP belief that it is possible to restore, or unconceal, humans back to our original wholeness continues to inspire my core being as an AEDP therapist. Danny Yeung, 2024. In striving to fulfill one’s deepest self, one encounters the biology of human emotion and attachment. In closely tracking and processing the moment-to-moment fluctuations in bodily rooted affective experience, we get to (the experience of) truth. In one fell experiential swoop, we go from biology to truth. And back. “Up and down, both ways.” Diana Fosha, 2005
To live in vitality, fully and unabashedly present, in command of desires, needs and wants, in graceful and tender possession of all states of mind – feeling, wanting, willing, relating, deciding, creating, flailing, falling, enduring – is, in AEDP language, to flourish. Flourishing is not merely the aim of an AEDP therapy, it is the expected outcome. It is a uniquely bold assertion, and it is empirically-grounded (Iwakabe, et. al., 2020, 2022).
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Carrie Ruggieri, LMHC, BCETS is the editor for Transformance: The AEDP Journal. She an AEDP therapist in private practice in Rhode Island and is a board-certified expert in trauma studies. Address correspondence to Carrie Ruggieri at carrieruggieri@me.com.
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Article Four:
“I can give you a bigger space” Transformation Starting from Core State: A cross cultural case study
by H. Jacquie Ye-Perman
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.
Introduction
A brief historical context:
Although not our therapy focus, nor did we spend extensive time exploring the components of trauma on a big societal scale during therapy, a lot of what my client revealed about her early life and her experiences of her parents matched my understanding of the impacts of cross-generational trauma that were common amongst her generation of the Chinese community. Approaching her trauma with an empathic understanding of the history, rather than jumping into judgment about her parents for their emotional unavailability and often physical absence, helped make space for the client’s process. Therefore I would like to share my knowledge about this aspect so the readers can have more background and an understanding about my approach.
Between the late 1930’s and mid 1940’s, Chinese people experienced widespread wars, including the World War II and a civil war. For the following three decades the country went through drastic societal and economic changes, both in the cities and countryside, and large scale political campaigns, including the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In other words, for about half a century people went through tremendous instability, including family separation, death, dislocation, disintegration of traditions and values (for a detailed description of the turbulence and the psychological impacts, see Markert, 2014). Such extraordinary adversities across a long period of time were likely to cause high levels of chronic stress.
My client Wei (a pseudonym) grew up in such an era. She remembered relying on her mother as the only parent during her early years. Her mother had with no support from a spouse, extended family, or societal …
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H. Jacquie Ye-Perman, Ph.D. is an AEDP Institute faculty member and certified AEDP therapist and supervisor. She is Ambassador of the AEDP Institute to China, AEDP DBEI Committee Member, AEDP International Development Committee member
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