Head Inside Mental Health
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and behavioral health expert hosts #Head-Inside Mental Health featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care.
Head Inside Mental Health
Attachment Styles: The Hidden Blueprint of Our Relationships
In this deeply insightful conversation we welcome Dr. Jack Hinman, founder of Engage Transitions, and Eric Fawson, Clinical Director at Elements Wilderness Treatment Program, to explore how our earliest relationships create templates that shape our connections throughout life. Both experts bring unique perspectives from their extensive work with young adults and families navigating mental health challenges in therapeutic settings.
For parents struggling to navigate relationships with young adults, the experts offer a practical framework: love unconditionally, support positive growth, refuse to enable destructive patterns, and—perhaps most challenging—don't treat young adults as fragile. As Jack explains, "Your attachment style is not locked in. It can continue to grow and change," offering hope that we can all move toward more secure attachment through self-awareness and practice.
Whether you're seeking to understand your own relationship patterns, parent more effectively, or simply connect more authentically with others, this episode offers profound insights into the invisible forces that shape our most important connections.
Hello folks, thanks for joining us today on Head Inside Mental Health, featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment, with experts from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care, broadcasting on WPVM 1037, the voice of Asheville Independent Commercial Free Radio. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host, therapeutic consultant and behavioral health expert. I have two guests with me today. Behavioral health expert. I have two guests with me today. We have Dr Jack Hinman returning to the show. Jack is the founder and executive director of Engaged Transitions out there in Cedar City, utah, program, working with young adults often coming out of residential treatment, struggling with mental health challenges, engaging in the recovery work to begin living an independent life. We have had a great conversation earlier this year about attachment styles, which was really cool, and we came up with a great idea and we'll see if it plays out that way to invite Eric Fawson, clinical director with elements program serving adolescents, young adults and program programming for neurodiverse teens in a therapeutic experiential outdoor setting there in Southern Utah.
Speaker 1:Eric has been a therapist since 2005, first in residential therapeutic boarding school setting for many years as a wilderness therapist and clinical director. Eric is known for his expertise as a family systems attachment trauma specialist. That's a mouthful which goes hand in hand with his work in mood disorders, substance abuse and other addictive behaviors. Eric's earliest clinical training focused on the recovery with the young adult population and throughout his clinical career he's been able to stay connected to the young adult clinical work either through direct care or in a counseling capacity. Eric first earned a degree in behavioral sciences from Utah Valley University and later earned his master's degree in clinical social work from Brigham Young.
Speaker 1:After graduate school, eric anticipated continuing his education towards an academic career and professorship. However, the outdoor bug grabbed him, as it did many of us. After having worked in a residential setting with the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse and with the adopted triad, eric focused his energies toward being a therapist and, from his own time, growing up in Hawaii, embraces the spirit of Ohana, believes that growing up in the islands shaped his caring nature and ability to connect to his clients. Eric was adopted at birth along with his younger brother and is also the parent of an adopted child, which he considers one of his greatest life's blessings. Uh, eric and Jack, thank you for joining the show. Thank you for being willing to come in to the madness that is discussing attachment Theory. Um, we can pretend that we're on mountain bikes riding up, riding up the mountain there in Utah and uh, and hit this philosophical button. Uh, uh. I don't know if this was intentional, but you guys decided to make Valentine's day the day that we did this.
Speaker 1:We did this recording that may have been Jack's. The kind of guy might think about that. Ooh, we could do it on Valentine's day. Talk about attachment styles as it relates to intimate relationships. I'm like sounds good to me. Um, I, I personally, am all done with personal realization. I don't want to do any more growth and development, so I'm gonna let you guys talk while I I leave no oh no oh no, we got you.
Speaker 3:We got you now, which is so much your style, your attachment style, todd. That speaks to your attachment style, and my need to continue to talk about relationships is my style, which is such my attachment style.
Speaker 1:All right, Eric, what's your style?
Speaker 2:You've got the offensive story here, yeah my style is definitely on the anxious attachment style, for sure, and I'm sitting here thinking, oh, my introduction was twice as long as jack, so what I need to be anxious about?
Speaker 1:I got so much going on here jack got the long introduction first time he was on the first time around we're gonna give you this one, but, um you know, I'm gen x, so I have the anxious avoidant see I just like if nobody's around, I'm gonna avoid. I'm gonna close myself up and do my own thing. I'll be fine. Fine, over here, I can take care of it.
Speaker 2:So you know, it's so funny because I, I, just I, I have five children and my youngest is 15 and and her and I are just kind of having some conversations about this recently, like she, finally, she finally, I think, had enough courage to say, dad, I just don't get you. And I was like, well, let's take the wizard of Oz approach. Do you want to? Do you want to? Are you okay if I let you behind the curtain a little bit? And she's like sounds scary. And I said, yeah, it can be, I'll keep it limited.
Speaker 2:But and I was able to actually indirectly talk about attachment with her and just you know how some of my attachment style is informed by this experience of being an adoptee right, and I know that's not what the focus is, but I mean it's just, I think, why I'm sharing that is. It's just so interesting to just be aware of how much attachment informs so much of the person that we are, what we do, how we show up. Being the clinical director of Wilderness Program, I get the opportunity to train staff and the last two weeks I've done training with them on the concept of transference and counter-transference and just self-awareness. And you cannot have that training conversation without having a conversation about attachment, attachment style and your history, because that conversation is all about what you're bringing into the conversation real quick define for everybody transference and counter-transference.
Speaker 1:I think we're all pretty familiar, but we have an audience that may not be. Give us your, give us your brief definition of those two terms.
Speaker 2:Sure, super clinical right. So what I would just say is that transference and countertransference can be a really important part of the therapeutic process. The transference is what the client is bringing in and they are potentially projecting out onto the therapist or the helper or the staff, and then the therapist returns the favor right.
Speaker 2:And the countertransference is how we respond or react to that. And our response and our reaction as the helper, the therapist, is very much rooted in our own attachment styles, which are informed by our childhood. So it is that interplay of the relationship that's going on and we have to be really aware of it.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing Jack just said in the interview we had, you know, looking at some of the relationship that's going on and we have to be really aware of it. Well, I think jack just said in the interview we had, you know, looking at at some of the data and some of the other things that go on in programming is that some of what made some of what made um the most difference was the attachment style of the therapist and when the work was getting accomplished, like the attachment style of the therapist actually informed a lot of what progress was made, as much as any other factor.
Speaker 2:If I remember right, jack, from that conversation, the anxious attachment style shows up really well at the beginning of the process but they fall off as the relationship requires more intimacy, almost, and closeness and the secure person they're able to show up strongly for the entire relationship, yeah well I think, oh, go ahead jack yeah, like it's really interesting too.
Speaker 3:You think about like what kind of people gravitate to. The helping, helping kind of community or helping profession is typically more preoccupied people, because we're super interested in relationships, we want relationship connection, but but we see poorer outcomes with people who've got like insecure or preoccupied attachment, like they attach really well, but what happens? The client picks up on their neediness, the therapist is getting too much of their needs in therapy, so the client gets, is not okay with that and pushes back. And so it's really fascinating to look at your outcomes of secure versus avoidance style therapists and and the mismatch of those particular roles. And secure therapists can kind of or a helper can kind of go bounce back, can adjust or attach a style of the needs of the client.
Speaker 2:Well, just to close the loop on the transference counter-transference. If the therapist is going in there to get their needs met, their emotional needs, that's counter-transference. If the therapist is going in there to get their needs met, their emotional needs, that's counter-transference and that's an unhealthy use of the of the chiron's disease.
Speaker 1:Right the wounded helper yep the wounded helper. Yep right yeah they get their needs met through providing help and um that can. That can lead to some poor outcomes.
Speaker 2:Let's well, and I would. This is what I said in the training with my staff. When we talk about the wounded helper, there's not a single one of us in the room listening to this podcast or on this podcast. That didn't come out of our childhood unscathed and it's just a matter of being aware and self-awareness that this is part of the process doing your work, being aware of your attachment style, but not just your attachment, but you've done your work. Being aware of your attachment style, but not just your attachment, but you've done your work. That doesn't mean that a wounded person can't be a good helper, a good therapist. You just have to be really self-aware of what's coming up for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I don't want to, I don't want to miss this, this little opportunity that you, you gave us the door into there, eric, but you, you talked about being an adoptee into there, eric, but you, you talked about being an adoptee, having an adoptee and the your youngest daughter uh, youngest child, kind of coming to you like I don't get you um and you like peeling back the curtain a little bit.
Speaker 1:Um and I in. We talked about intimacy, but you know, intimate relationships are not just with your, your, your, you know in, you know in your case, your wife or partner.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's also with your children.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, you've got this, this, this inescapable intimate relationship with your children my, in my view at least and all this stuff starts to play out. A hundred percent and so you know you guys are like I know that we could jump in and we could talk about programming for the kids, adolescents and young adults that you work with in a program capacity and watching how that plays out in the programming. Let's get a little vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And why don't you guys talk about how you know, your ideas about how it plays out in home life, some of the ways in which that's come out in your own life? I'll be glad to jump in and share some of my own, but, like let's, let's what let's, let's jump in that rabbit hole for a little bit. And what are your thoughts about all that?
Speaker 2:yeah, jack, do you want to share? I, I have something I absolutely want to share go for it.
Speaker 3:I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm doing a lot of my anxious attachment style says you're talking too much already.
Speaker 3:You're great. I want to get to the yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. So. I have five children, as I mentioned, and one of my, one of my kids, is adopted and it's it's a familial adoption. So he came through us, through on my wife's side of my family, young boy going through the foster care system and her brother came to us and was and said, hey, you know this, this young man, this little boy he was one and a half, I think at the time needs a home. Is this something you guys are interested in? And it could turn towards adoption.
Speaker 2:And even though I believe I had done some of my work, all of my stuff got triggered almost immediately and I wanted to please my wife, who was very open. We had gone through, we had two children, but we'd also experienced multiple miscarriages. We knew we wanted a larger family. Here's an opportunity. It was very difficult to say to my wife and, testing the attachment and the connection, to say I'm not ready for this, I need more time, because all of a sudden, stuff that I thought I had contained or addressed was exposed Right. I'm holding back my tears a little bit as I think about this, because it was, it was honestly Todd. It was such a hard conversation to say no, because I also love being a parent, but several months later the opportunity showed up again, and for the same child same child, same little boy, yeah, same situation.
Speaker 2:Back in foster care, and it was about a six month span of time and in that six months I was able to do some of my necessary work. Not that I thought the opportunity was going to come again, but I looked at him more like, hey, your crap just showed up. It's time to do work If you're going to be an effective therapist. Husband, father, you got to be doing, you got to be looking at it, and I had. And then that opportunity and it was like, yep, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 2:And what it was was what I kind of figured out was I knew that if this little boy landed in our home, I was going to fall in love with him. And the idea that he could be taken away through the foster care system because we were only being asked to be foster parents. I don't know that my heart was ready for that. You know, take attachment out of the clinical and let's just talk about our souls and our heart. I don't know that I was ready for that because that was going to potentially poke at that abandonment and abandonment and rejection wound that I'm always working on.
Speaker 1:So well and it sounds like you know if we're talking about projection, transference, counter-transference. It's almost like you've got a child who's doing this dance to the foster system and you've got a connection to what that looks like. You've got this deep connection to what being an adoptive child and what it looks like before adoption. You're showing up with this mutual, either unmet need or anxiety or fear. That has happened. It's like I'm having this, they're probably having this, and then they just they just bounce off of one another. Right, even if you're not together, you're just. You have this thing in your mind that plays out and all of a sudden, I don't know if I can, I don't know if my heart can handle that.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Wow, and just to fast forward the story, 22 years later, just as we started this podcast, I got a text from him saying I love you, dad. Happy Valentine's day, oh that's awesome, right, wow.
Speaker 3:It's also really fascinating and now now Eric is a granddad and his kids are getting married, and so it's so fascinating to kind of just like hear Fawcett talk about like his relationship with his kids and how attachment plays out. And now he's seeing his own children have relation, have intimate relationships with people and they're having kids, and now we've got this multi-generational attachment process play out and it's super fascinating to hear him talk about it well that, you know we get into the.
Speaker 1:You know, I just had uh dr norm tybo on the show. Oh um, he'd make a great fourth to this one. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, he was, he was just talking about the neurobiology of it too.
Speaker 1:You know, and we we kind of spent time focused on, like you know, one is a, one is a kid, adopted at birth, still have all these attachment issues. It's like, well, there's all this stuff that happens to the brain and how attachment style. You know you got an anxious mother who's worried about all the things that a mother might worry about if they're giving their child up for adoption and they're given that neurochemistry to their child and you're in utero, and they're given that neurochemistry to their child in utero, and so they come out into the world and they still suffer from all the attachment stuff that goes along with being an adopted child, which so many do. And that's why they have their program that focuses on not only children but also families that are dealing with that struggle and providing help and support. Now Eric has a, you know he's got. He's working with neurodiverse kids, working with adolescents and working with the young adults, more in the residential treatment side. Jack, you're working on the transitional side, not to take us away from the intimacy piece.
Speaker 1:But you know, if I look at the stages of development for an adult, for child to adult, young adult and then going into world of being independent and how this, how an attachment style, matures and grows. And it sounds like you know, eric, your your story about this is like you know, I thought about this. All of a sudden, this thing I put in this quiet little room and thought it was handled, busted the door open and came charging into my emotional complex and said hey, wait a minute, I'm still here. I got things to say Like how do you see, you know, maybe if you want to share how it played out in your life, I could probably talk about mine a little bit, just having these conversations with you guys and how do you see it play out in others? Like, what does this development process look like?
Speaker 3:To me you talk about. You know, eric and I both work with young adults and like typically, 18 and around, probably up to 30 typically, and he works in an outdoor setting and I work in a transitional setting. And so and Eric and I have actually spoke about this is that this special developmental time of individuation from your parents like moving on and developing.
Speaker 3:Now you're kind of thinking more about like romantic partners and roommates, and it's this really special window that kind of almost reopens again for notable attachment change or shifting to occur naturally and organically from a developmental sense. And also, too, you'll see a lot of like, almost like. Attachment just comes even more to the forefront when you're talking about like individuating from your family, because the parents attachment stuff will come up in that process. The young adults attachment stuff will come up. So it's a really it's a really a very awesome opportunity for the parents to look at their stuff and the young adult too and what like and Foss and I talk about this all the time and in outdoor therapy or like a wilderness setting like Erica's in, creates this really good container for a lot of attachment stuff to come up.
Speaker 3:You think about safety and security. You got to like how does a wilderness setting create safety and security for the young adult to settle in? And I love how Eric talks about his sessions are like can be two, two and a half hours Like you don't. You have the flow of the relationship that's driving the force and treatment in an outdoor setting versus maybe in an indoor setting where you're up against the clock and you've got like things, all these things, and so when Boston's out there, like the process and conversation about these things and plus outdoor therapy, is a great opportunity to kind of step aside from your family of origin and look at yourself a little bit separately yeah, so it's this great window to kind of relook at attachment on a deeper level.
Speaker 3:And you got, you got a young adult there's their intellectual functioning is coming a little bit more online. They've got a history of relationships of success or failures for the draw from that man. You can do powerful work with attachment at that time.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:What are you thinking, Fawcett? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, to simplify it like, what I love about working in the outdoors and in the early stages of this process with young adults and even with adolescents, is, I think we're opening up a lot of things. We're not. We're definitely not closing doors. We're creating possibilities. Lot of things we're not. We're definitely not closing doors. We're creating possibilities. We're creating awareness and then sending them off in a way that hopefully we've planted some seeds around attachment and understanding that for themselves and helping them in my mind, you know, rearrange their relationship with attachment. I think that's really important and it helps them inform their relationships differently and even gives them some hope, because you know they come in just like what am I doing wrong, you know?
Speaker 1:you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2:You don't know what you don't know and I'll throw this in here because I think it's probably an important part of the conversation with the age group that Jack and I work with the pandemic did, I think, did a number on attachment for a lot of our young people. And you know, I believe this is Fossen's soapbox for a moment it really curtailed a couple of years of really important development, developmental milestones and moments for them to try to go out and launch and practice that and test the world, and they couldn't because it was shut down and the online stuff just didn't compensate for that. And so I think we're we're probably up against a little bit of developmental delay when it comes to the attachment, the natural progression that we experienced, that we did the experience without the pandemic.
Speaker 1:You might read it in books, but all of a sudden this person is at least a year off of that because of that event, right.
Speaker 3:And it's really funny because people talk about like, oh, we had this great time together in our pajamas and mom was, dad were working in their pajamas and their son was in their pajamas and we just got so time of a family.
Speaker 3:And the thing about attachment people kind of like misunderstand about attachment is the paradox of attachment the more attached you are, the more independent you want to be. And so people will say, oh gosh, we're so close, we're so close and yeah, but is that really? You're close, but you're insecurely close. So the thing about the pandemic it kind of created this preoccupied, insecure attachment for all parties. So the point because when you're attached, securely attached, you want to launch, you want to be independent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say that other family systems really experienced that part of time differently. I live in rural southern Utah. My town has 1,200 people. We didn't hardly know there was a pandemic. I live in rural rural Southern Utah. My town has 1200 people. We didn't hardly know there was a pandemic.
Speaker 2:We didn't know there was a pandemic. It's like what pandemic, you know, and dense parts of the world. They were closed off and I think I really think parents understandably got really scared, like the pandemic was differently real for different family systems and had a different impact on just just trauma. And I mean we keep bringing it back to attachment, but I think it's bigger than attachment as well, but just how I connect and interact with the world, Well, you know you're talking about the identity piece that you've got a lot of.
Speaker 1:You've got a lot of folks who hit the pandemic, at that place where identity was being formed. So you, you throw in this complicating measure, my family's experience with the pandemic, and I have some unique elements. Not everybody's got the advantages of having these, which is, you know, we got a big house, we live out in the country, kids have their own room, kids have their own room. Uh, they have parents who are both, you know, masters in education, come from therapeutic background, come from human services work, and so not only we're, we're and I work from home, so I'm available and I'm here and I can witness what's going on. Everything else I had my youngest was was starting to get in trouble. He was starting to get on the radar with teachers, which can be a bit of a cycle. I was like, look man, when you're on the radar, you stay on the radar until you're not for a while, don't put yourself in this box. But then, all of a sudden, the pandemic hit and they're out of the actual, the, the physical view of teachers. Um, my oldest, who is not unlike me, you know, very introverted, likes their space, wants to be just like doing their thing in their space, very smart, can accomplish academically without a lot of support or help. They actually went through the pandemic and it was a benefit to them. They experienced, like some, they got some time away, they got some personal space, they got our undivided attention. When there was support around academics, like for my youngest, that we needed to provide, it's like, look, you gotta, just gotta do the thing, man, um, and came out of that experience with what they felt like was a break, um, and I thought that that was really really interesting, comparative to so many others who were, you know, didn't have some of those advantages, didn't have the benefit of, uh, you know either, being in a, in a place with lots of land.
Speaker 1:We also are outdoor, outdoor people. You know, we come from the outdoor industry, both my wife and I and and you know, pandemics like well, all your activities are shut off. Well, most of our activities are going out in the forest. So, not a problem, we were able to go out in the forest, we didn't get cut off from some of those things. So, um, do you see that diversity in the folks that you're working with? Like one kid comes in and it was like, and the folks that you're working with like one kid comes in and it was like great, but you know they're working on stuff. Or this other kid in, it was really impactful because the family dynamics they have like is there a diversity in the folks that you're seeing coming in to your treatment environment?
Speaker 2:what do you think?
Speaker 3:jack. Um, I don't think so, because you it sounds like you had a positive outcome um, related to that situation. I almost kind of conceptualized it was like you're kind of like stabilizing the bleeding, like your son was kind of starting to bleed and then like we're going to come in and stabilize and the pandemic created a stabilization situation for your family and for your son and it helped stabilize that. But I think our situation I'm seeing and maybe Fawcett can speak to this too is that our clients were already like we're struggling with significant anxiety, pretty significantly. So they were struggling anyway.
Speaker 3:So the pandemic came and it was like a retreat for them. They kind of. It was like it was nice for them at that moment but it perpetuated that pattern and it increased their level of anxiety and social pieces. So it was relieving, it was like an avoidance, like those, those super anxious young adults or adolescents at the time. Uh, it was a retreat for dealing with things and it. But it fed into that pattern. And then, when it was it's almost the issues of post pandemic. Now we've got the post pandemic and now you're being, now I've got to be. I'm older now by a couple of years. I was like 16. Now I'm 18 or 19 or 20.
Speaker 3:And now I'm, and people are expecting all these things from me Bingo, yeah, and I've got to be independent, but my pattern is more severe. That's kind of what I see. I don't know what you think, fawcett.
Speaker 1:Yeah that, yeah. Now what about the parent side? Like you know we're talking about, you know, swinging back around to the end of the z, you got, you got parents. Some of them are not, they're co-parenting, they're not together anymore, and you've got others that are. You know, they're in the home environment and they've got their own attachment style. What is it that you know when you're supporting families, which both of your programs are heavily involved in supporting families and being a, you know, parents to the young adult who's struggling or making these strides towards independence, uh, and getting care that they need? What are you seeing from the families that you know either took place then, or what changes are they making? What real is it? What's the kind of big aha you see from families as they kind of engage in doing this work and and supporting their loved one and and becoming a young adult?
Speaker 2:Oh, the big aha. That's a great question. Is there one big aha?
Speaker 1:What's the aha right?
Speaker 2:I'm going to speak to it from a little bit of a narcissistic perspective, if you will.
Speaker 1:Is there any other kind?
Speaker 2:Exactly I think what we do really well and what programs like Engage and other, I think, well-qualified young adult programs do is they're really helping young adults and their parents redefine their relationship.
Speaker 2:Now, I think we were doing that before the pandemic. I don't think this is pandemic dependent, but I think we were doing a really good job of helping parents and young adults create healthy separation. I think the pandemic increased the challenge of that a bit, but I think we're getting a little bit more to where it feels like the tradition that we used to know, you know, and so I think if there's an aha moment, there's the idea of being able to trust that my young adult is going to be okay, even in the challenges, because parents were freezing and counter transferring their own anxiety to have a call back onto their young adult who was younger than and didn't have the capacity to manage that and and and. Now we're we're helping them redefine that and look through that and, honestly, just kind of in a way of letting go with love is and letting go of their own anxiety, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, as much as I can. What about you, jack? Like they're almost coming out of with Eric. They're coming out of this. It's more of a tree, you know? Residential treatment environment, yeah, and they, and then they get to you, um, and it's kind of next day, you know, next stage, next phase. Does it look different? Is it something that's? What's the difference there?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Eric, actually Foss, and I talk about this all the time.
Speaker 3:Like and he's laughing. Yeah, we talk about, like the process of like the parent work in an outdoor therapy program and we talk about the process of the outdoor work like in a transition program and the challenges that both have. And so Eric used the word like frozen or freezing, and I think that's the main pattern that him and I we see a lot is paralysis. Our parents have paralysis where their own anxiety from their outside world and as a parent, they freeze, they freeze as parents and they don't know what to do, and so then they get to an outdoor program and they get anxiety from from their outside world and, as a parent, they freeze. They freeze as parents, they know what to do and so. So then they get to an outdoor program and they get coaching. They can talk about those patterns and and and looking at those patterns, but then when they come to a program like engage, they're right back in it.
Speaker 3:They're, they have like their young adult has instant access to them by texting and calling and family therapy and things like that too, where now they have to lean back into parenting and a lot of the work is how do you parent a young adult that has the notable challenges that are in a program like ours and a lot of our families are just frozen, and so what happens is that they freeze, they don't hold boundaries and then their child doesn't trust them because they're frozen, and so it's A helping them build confidence back into parenting. And what does parenting look like for a person who's delayed developmentally in their development?
Speaker 2:Right you know, I believe this old model, older model, still stands, even post-pandemic, when I'm trying to help parents conceptualize their relationship with a young adult and I use these four things that kind of help them guide their relationship. And number one is I'm going to love you always, no matter what. My love for you is unconditional. Number two is I'm going to do everything I can to help support productive, positive movement forward in your life. Number three is I refuse to support negative behavioral patterns that I believe are destructive to you. And number four and this is oftentimes the hardest one for everybody, todd is I am not going to treat you as fragile. I'm going to believe you are capable and that's a little bit of a.
Speaker 2:Jedi mind trick for parents. But you know, I don't think it's just pandemic and even though we brought that in, I just think that's kind of a movement we even saw before. The pandemic was kids were maybe being too being too fragile with them. Because let's just bring this back to attach, because parents attachment style is that the anxious, perhaps anxious avoidant. I don't want to feel rejected or abandoned, I want to be liked. It's so important that I think there's a really great conversation to have if a parent should be their child's best friend.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, Maybe when they're 40.
Speaker 2:Off and on and helping parents move into the idea of I'm going to, I'm your advisor, but I'm going to I'm also an authority in your life, you know, as a way. And so that I think is a real challenge of just helping parents see that their kids are so capable. And that's one of the reasons I love what I do in wilderness and outdoors is we get that healthy separation and they get to go out there and do hard things in an outdoor setting.
Speaker 1:I can do hard things.
Speaker 2:I can do hard things. There you go. I am not fragile, and sometimes I have to teach clients to go. Dad, I don't need you to treat me as fragile. I'm actually capable, you know advocate for themselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so fascinating how attachment plays out with that particular process. So, for example, like Eric talks about love and boundaries love and boundaries like you're holding love and boundaries at the same time and and you look at like secure parents were able to hold both they have. They have the confidence themselves as a parent, they feel secure in their relationship with their child so they're able to consistently love them but also hold boundaries at the same time, and so it's kind of that poles that are holding that. And it's really fascinating where you look at therapists, you look at helpers, you look at parents. You look at therapists, you look at helpers. You look at parents like a therapist who don't trust their clients. Parents who don't trust their kids typically have preoccupied attachment style. So it's so fascinating the insecurity. So you basically don't have security yourself.
Speaker 3:You project that insecurity on your clients, you project insecurity on your kids, and so it's so fascinating with how, how that ability to do what eric is asking directly links to your attachment style so you're not doomed like we eric and I talk about like you're not doomed and like and we're doing our own work, like I think a lot of our friendship is is doing our own work together and and figuring ourselves out and and and that's like how we lean on each other in our relationship in that way and where where like, I'm in the space of preoccupied. But the thing is I could be preoccupied but show up secure, and the more I show up secure, the more I'm going to be secure and so like it's shifting. Your attachment style is not locked in. It can continue to grow and change.
Speaker 2:You know you were asking Todd earlier about, like sharing, being a little bit vulnerable in the space and I have this kind of related story here. So one of my other daughters, she drives, and every morning that's the big one, right, they drive, they drive. Wintertime here, so every morning, you know, cars have frost on it and my garage is full of stuff.
Speaker 2:So she can't park in the garage right now, and I noticed one morning that she didn't have the car started to defrost the windshield and and she was just a few minutes from leaving for school and I said, hey, how come you're not defrosting the window? She says, well, I, she's a, she's a quilter, she makes quilts, beautiful quilts. And she said I spent all of my money on quilting material and I don't have enough to let the car run before I go, so I'm going to have to scrape the windows the old fashioned way.
Speaker 2:Now, not treating her fragile was like this is awesome, right, but the attachment part of me, the part that was like my, that's informed by my adoption, which is fear of abandonment, and I want my kids to like me, wanted to get the car and go fill it up with gas for her, but I would have removed a growth opportunity for her. That's what I mean by like being self-aware and going oh, I was so happy for her. And at the same time, I had this dichotomy of oh, I want to go and fill her tank so that she doesn't have to go scrape a window of, oh, I want to go and fill her tank so that she doesn't have to go scrape a window. And yet what? What would I have taken away from her if she would have not had that opportunity?
Speaker 1:and pretty dang thoughtful when you think about it. It's like I don't have enough gas to let the car run, I'm gonna have to scrape it, like that's. That's. Yeah, that's putting it together right there. That's pretty cool. And she didn't come to you and say, hey, I, I need some gas. Really interesting that's. That sounds like a very cool moment.
Speaker 3:What's that about me? I start my daughter's car every every morning because she's it waits the last minute getting ready and I want to make sure all the windows are all like visible so she drives safely. What does it say about me that I do that every morning, am I? I run out my underwear and my little flip-flops, starting her car out in the driveway.
Speaker 1:Well, Jack, we're going to take this offline and have a little session.
Speaker 2:Jack, what you didn't know was this is actually an intervention, so you walked right into it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean. So. I live somewhere between those two places, especially with my youngest. My oldest was like me and like super controlled, organized, everything like that. My, my youngest is, could sell you the shirt off your back. So he's in, he's this incredible negotiator, and so it'd be like.
Speaker 2:So, dad, you know, I need a little gas money yeah well, so here's the here's the other interesting part of the conversation taught it there might be a time let's just bring this back to Valentine's Day a little bit in love and compassion. There might be a time when it would be totally appropriate for me to go and fill her tank with gas.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:As a sense of like, not because she spent all her money, but simply because, hey, I love you.
Speaker 1:I'm your dad, I love you, I just love you, I can do this for you, I can.
Speaker 2:I love you, I'm your dad. I love you, I just love you. I can't so.
Speaker 1:I will, and that's also a healthy attachment. You know, and I think that speaks to something that's really important here, which is, I mean, I we can go into several different rabbit holes off of this one, but you know that there, that with all our models and the theoretical approaches and everything else, sometimes it doesn't you can't be guaranteed the answer as a parent. Sometimes you just like, sometimes the right answer is not scripted, you know, sometimes you just gotta. Which is why I love those rules that you named, like love them first. You know, love them first and give them these opportunities for growth and development and everything else. But believe that they're okay. That doesn't mean I'm not going to fill your gas tank.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, because I'm the person who you know helped raise you, brought you into the world. I want to be able to love and support you and sometimes I can share that love in this way or in this way. You know, riding up Andrew and I, andrew Powell, your executive director, got to ride up the mountain with him and go do a visit on one of the campsites. Got to bust a coal for the first time in like two decades, which was fun.
Speaker 1:But you know the sense that I got there in the campsite. I feel certain, jack, I could come to one of your campuses and find the same thing, which is it's okay, yeah, it's. You know it's going to be cold tonight and there's these things to do and we've got, you know, some of the stuff that we've got to accomplish, including putting up this tarp, and somebody was joining the group, but the feel, the energetic feel of it was one of there's nothing here we can't handle. There's nothing here you can't handle.
Speaker 3:Right, right, here we can't handle. There's nothing here you can't handle. Right right, just think about that for a minute from a security standpoint. Right like, so you're, you're, you're, you're a young person and you're going to an outdoor program. It's scary, like I don't, I can't do this, I don't have the skill set to be able to keep myself safe. But you've got this really skilled group of like outdoor staff out there that are going to keep them safe, going to actually teach you how to really to thrive and be resilient in this very dynamic environment, and so you walk away developing the skills of like I can take care of myself. So that deep level of security is such a formative way of attachment and you think about it. I can be okay, cause it all comes down to security, like the basis of relationships. The base of attachment is security, and able to build your own security is is such a powerful thing in your life and your relationships.
Speaker 1:Well, I had.
Speaker 2:I had this young man, uh, I worked with about three years ago, 18 year old, um, young man with autism one, and, and he stayed with me for 12 weeks out in the woods and, um, every week he would come to me in therapy and go fossan, I think I figured it out, I'm ready to go home now. Every week started. It was beautiful, it was so wonderful, and I loved having that conversation with him, but then, finally it, finally it was time for him to leave. Right, and he and I were sitting on top of a mountain, and this, this, this moment, still touched my heart.
Speaker 2:I can go back to it, I can recall it. I could drive there right now and he just said to me I don't know what happened to me out here, but right now I feel like I can take on the world, like I can take on anything. I'm ready to leave and I'm ready to take on whatever it is. And 12 weeks earlier, his wife was so messy, he was so scared that all he was doing was just acting everything out. And just, you know, he was a, he was a tyrant in his own home, right.
Speaker 2:And his parents and his parents didn't know what to do. And, um, and now he's and and at that point he was like, wow, something happened. And I love that part about I don't know what happened to me out here. Some clients do know what happened to him out there, but he didn't know. But he just knew something was different about myself and I'm ready to go, I'm ready, I'm really ready to go now well, some of that stuff, I think, really is unconscious.
Speaker 1:As you go through transformative kinds of life experiences, there's this unconscious things that happen to you and you don't realize them until you start walking through some other phase of your life and you're using different skills and you're approaching things a different way. You turn around and you go whoa, something happened.
Speaker 1:I'm not exactly sure what it is, but now, for some reason, I look at life differently and, um, I think for young adults that don't have, may not have, words and might not have the ability to identify some of the complex things that are happening in their life, or or name emotions and all those other things, of course it's unconscious that it is, they could see it as it was happening and I think, as adults, that's the thing that we do, is that if you're doing your work, you're looking back and you're like, oh, I can identify all these things that I wasn't aware of at the time. And I think that that's probably some of the really beautiful work that you guys are doing and the programs that you run. I'm Eric and Jack, dr Jack Hinman, I'm. I can't wait one to get on this mountain bike for real with you guys going up the hill.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 1:I'm going to bring. I'm going to bring a motor with mine just because I think I'm going to need it, and supportive for riding with you guys, but it's been so great having you on the show. Let's do this again and get down some more of these rabbit holes. I think we can go down, but this has been Head Inside Mental Health. On WPBM 1037, the voice of Asheville Todd Weatherly, your host, Dr Jack Hinman and Eric Fawcett.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being on the show. Bye, I found the illegal life. I'm used to the legal life in here. I found the illegal life in here. Thank you, I feel so lonely and lost in here.
Speaker 2:Bye, I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home.
Speaker 1:I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. Find my way home.