It’s no secret that addiction is a generational disease, which can be passed through families predictably. Dr. Alia Kaneaiakala, the chief clinical officer of Phoenix Rising, an outpatient treatment center in Aliso Viejo, California, believes that this can be explained using attachment theory.
Kaneaiakala’s research has lead her to believe that having insecure attachments during childhood—for example, having parents who did not respond to your needs—leads people to seek attachment in unhealthy ways, including through the use and abuse of substances, which can become pseudo attachments.
At Phoenix Rising, Kaneaiakala takes an attachment approach to healing, helping clients foster a healthy attachment through therapy. Once they’ve learned that skill they can bring it into the rest of their lives, hopefully breaking the cycle of addiction. The first step in this process is for clients to recognize Kaneaiakala as a safe haven and secure base, which will give them the basis to form a primary attachment.
“They learn I am safe,” she explains. That bond is often reinforced when clients find themselves facing tension with Kaneaiakala over disagreements or misunderstandings.
“Being able to talk it through and repair the relationship is one of the strongest components of healthy attachments,” Kaneaiakala explains. “After that, they know that someone is there and unconditionally supporting them.”
In early recovery, relationships with therapists and sponsors are critical to modeling healthy behavior.
“Hopefully with therapy and a sponsor, people in recovery learn what a healthy relationship is,” Kaneaiakala says. “Those relationships are real. They are a microcosm for the rest of the world, so clients are able to take what they’ve learned there into the world and build upon it.”
When people experience a healthy, secure relationship with their therapist or sponsor they are able to understand what a healthy attachment feels like, often for the first time in their lives.
“Once it’s established it’s something we all yearn for. When we see a healthy attachment we know it,” Kaneaiakala says. “It’s innate within us to know a healthy attachment and to want it. Once we can create it for ourselves it keeps growing from then on.”
One way that Kaneaiakala knows that clients are building healthy relationships is when they refuse to compromise on their beliefs and boundaries. That can be particularly important when it comes to continuing relationships with family members who may still be unhealthy.
Kaneaiakala has many clients who have been hurt by their parents, but do not want to discontinue that relationship. She believes that there is social obligation, but also a biological tie that makes it very complex and painful for children to cut themselves off from parents, even those who are toxic.
Instead, Kaneaiakala works with clients to validate their feelings about their parent and to discuss the pain and triggers in the relationship.
“Just being heard usually frees them up to see it for what it was, and to decide when to let go of it,” she says. That returns power to the client, since he or she is establishing her own boundaries around the relationship. Kaneaiakala recommends having plans in place including limited visiting time, having someone else at the visit, or planning to attend a meeting afterward.
“They can return to the relationship,” she says. “Once they’ve validated their experience they can go back and be free to just enjoy the relationship for what it is, and be more tolerant.”
It also allows the client to own all aspects of their journey—even the unpleasant ones.
“Even people who have hurt us have still helped shape us,” Kaneaiakala says.
Phoenix Rising provides behavioral health care services in southern California. Find out more at https://phoenixrisingbehavioral.com/ and follow them on Facebook and Twitter
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