Validating Emotional Bonding Psychotherapy: What It Is and How It Works

Validating Emotional Bonding Psychotherapy It is a treatment model applied in social education for minors who have problems, especially those who have grown up in helpless environments.

This model has many components and is complex, addressing aspects such as attachment style, mentalization, parenting style and, of course, emotions. Let's take a closer look at it.

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What is Validating Emotional Bonding Psychotherapy?

Validating emotional validation psychotherapy (VEV) is a treatment framed within the integrative models in psychotherapy and is conceived as a specialized methodology of intervention in the devices of juvenile justice and protection juvenile. It is a model that works on the relational aspects of the minor and is applied in the psychoeducational and psychosocial field.

It is a limited support psychotherapeutic approach that intervenes in several aspects, giving a greater sense of control to the context in which the person has raised, treat and improve possible serious ego-syntonic disorders that he suffers through intervening in emotional dysregulation, the relational disorder and aspects related to the environment that have contributed to the child's dysfunctional behavior and pathological.

The main goal of validating emotional attachment psychotherapy is validate the emotional experience of value by creating a container environment, that is, a safe and growing environment. To do this, an attempt is made to mobilize the necessary resources to modify the attachment style of the minor when he begins to be cared for by a social educator to gradually converting it into a secure attachment, using a methodology that can vary in modality, and can be individual, family, group and / or intervention community.

Aspects that are taken into account in this type of therapy

As we mentioned, one of the main groups with which This type of therapy is used are minors, especially those cared for in different social protection systems. These minors, who can be both children and adolescents, may find themselves in a situation of great helplessness, having been victims of styles of dysfunctional parenting and other problems that are the source and possible cause of your mental health problems, maladaptive behaviors, and addictions.

This part of the therapy modality takes into account the following:

• Explanation of behavior from the etiology of psychic suffering.
• Possibility of dual pathologies, with concomitant consumption of toxins that aggravate the condition.
• Relational problems or bond disorders.
• Educator as modulator of the environment, context and elements of containment.
• Self-regulatory capacity of the individual that allows knowing what he thinks and does.
• Reflective ability to order, process and organize information
• Decision making and responsibility

The social educator or social psychologist acts as a source of change for the minor, since he is a key and controllable element in the life of the person he is trying to help, especially in residential and state assistance contexts. It is possible that the minor does not want to collaborate, or does not feel capable of changing his own life, for this reason everything The educator who works from validating emotional bonding psychotherapy should have as specific objectives the following:

• Become a supportive psychotherapy device and build adherence to the helping relationship.
• Establish focuses based on relational pathology.
• Address involuntariness through a container and validating link.

The link of educational intervention

As applied psychotherapy specifically with individuals with adjustment problems, it should be taken into account that the quality of the staff working with minors will have a significant influence on the rehabilitation of themselves. As in all educational relational processes, the most stable factor in the lives of minors in a situation of helplessness, sometimes the only one, is the educational figure of care, which is why it is so important for the educator himself to monitor his personal characteristics and which ones he shows when carrying out the intervention.

The applied model is so important because, if it is effective, may cause the minor to leave negative self-identifications behind, largely due to having been the subject of a failed parenting style.

Although the educator or social therapist does not intend to replace the father of the minor, it must be said that the bond acquires great importance education between the educator / therapist and the minor, something that if positive will contribute to the performance and progress of the intervened.

This link should try to be built based on the following aspects:

• Individual factors that guide the way to establish the minor's relationship with a non-pathological basis.
• Containing link, insofar as it collects what the other unconsciously puts on oneself.
• Validating bond, helping the other to recognize her emotions and helping him to connect her with what makes him suffer.
• Stability.
• Generation of pleasant relationships.

Understanding circularity

During the establishment of the educational bond in the framework of this therapy, it is about making the individual aware of how in relating to other people these relationships influence him and others. It is necessary to help him understand how we relate ("when you do X, I feel Y" and vice versa). This type of influence on human relationships is what we call circularity, whose name is due to infinite character of human relationships, insofar as the behaviors of one or the other are conditioned in a reciprocal.

The problems of homeless minors can be understood not as a cause-effect relationship, but as a circular relational dynamic, while someone in his environment does something bad to him, he does not know how to respond adaptively, he carries out some dysfunctional behavior, someone responds negatively again and thus a circular relational dynamic is established.

All family dynamics can contribute to the generation of different types of relationships, of which their own members do not have to be aware of their influences. These relationships can be functional and validating, in which emotions are more or less well accepted and in accordance with what the family members live, or disabling, where such emotions are oppressed or there is no awareness of what should be felt and done, promoting short and long-term regulation problems term.

Within the validating emotional bonding psychotherapy, various basic aspects of the relationship are taken into account, which if identified allow work on how the child connects with other people and make it more adaptive. Among these aspects we find the attachment style, the relational style, the experience of basic emotions, the mentalization capacity and their roles in the family and social environment. All these characteristics are displayed differently from person to person, giving each individual their idiosyncrasies.

As mentioned before, validating emotional attachment psychotherapy emphasizes ensure that the minor has a secure attachment style, considered the most functional and healthy of all they. We can talk about four main types of attachments, three of which are more typical of minors in situations of risk and helplessness.

• Safe: comfortable with privacy and autonomy. Good image of others and of yourself.
• Worried: too dependent. Good image of others and bad of himself.
• Resistant: denial of attachment. Bad image of others and high of oneself.
• Fearful: fear of attachment, avoidant. Bad image of others and of himself.

It is also important to know the parenting style. Each individual has been raised in a family with a truly unique parenting style, but which can be included in one of the following four categories.

• Democratic: high control, high affection and communication
• Authoritarian: high control, low affection and communication
• Permissive: low control, high affection and communication
• Negligent: low control, low affection and communication

While it is to be expected that homeless minors were raised in authoritarian or neglectful environments, there are also possibilities that they were raised in more permissive styles. It would be very strange to find a homeless minor who was raised in a democratic parenting style, and if they were You should try to figure out how the child has ended up in the situation they are currently in if they had a prosperous family environment.

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VEV therapy and emotions

As its name suggests, validating emotional attachment psychotherapy places one of its focuses of attention on emotions. This therapy part of the idea that there are six basic primary or innate emotions: fear, sadness, joy, anger, surprise and disgust. Secondary emotions would be of a social nature, appearing in such contexts, such as panic or shame.

It tends to be thought that social emotions are largely determined by training cultural, such as family or school, however, although this is partially true, it is not entirely Right. Indeed, culture can modulate the expression of these emotions and guide their manifestation, which can lead to their being used well or wrong depending on whether the individual has acquired the correct social norms, but the innate biological component is still present and is what allows feel them.

Sometimes it happens that the ability to express emotional states is altered, being able to feel a specific primary emotion but acting as if it were another. For example, a person who really feels sad instead of crying starts screaming, destroying objects and hurting other people, showing the behavior of anger. These types of problems would be common in homeless minors, and validating emotional attachment psychotherapy I would try to redirect these emotions, making it valid that they can manifest the signs of the emotion that really feel.