“The Journey from Abandonment to Healing” by Susan Anderson (Penguin Putnam, 2000) is really a very full book. It covers the physical and mental aspects of abandonment (good to read so as to understand how normal no appetite, light/little sleeping, sensitive hearing, anxiety etc. are and how these things are biologically wired into us).
Introduction to Abandonment
The meat of the book is the techniques for healing the abandonment wound. I have pulled the two main techniques out so that people who want to cut to the chase and start working on healing now can do so.
Susan Anderson makes the argument that many who discuss the psychological feeling of abandonment do—that these feelings are left over from events in babyhood or childhood when we felt abandoned. Because memory events are not recorded until the hippocampus develops later in childhood, and because even after that stress hormones erase memory details, many people are just left with emotional memory that has no context. “Babytime” as the author of “Breaking Love Addiction” reminds people, is different than adult time. An adult leaving a baby for fifteen minutes may feel like forever. However, I’m not totally sure that this theory explains abandonment wound origins completely. Humans are social animals who have always lived in social groups. It stands to reason that adults have social connections wired into our brains. Consequently, I am also thinking that perhaps it is an adult ache that is naturally there, especially for those who we incorporate into our minds as family, when we lose those people or even pets to death or other events. A double whammy could be felt if both of these factors- childhood abandonment emotional memory plus adult sociofamilial abandonment reaction came together at the same time.
Separation Therapy
Anderson argues that it is not necessary to remember a past childhood abandonment event to heal. Instead, it is only necessary to work with the emotional part of your brain. To take that part and talk it into better feelings and more security. In order to do that, Anderson asks us to create a scenario in which we visualize characters, which stand in for different parts of us, communicating. This is a common neurolinguistic programming method for getting to deep parts of one’s mind.
“The withdrawal stage is driven by attachment energy, the impulse to bond. Just because the object of your attachment is no longer available to you does not mean that your need to bond goes away. On the contrary, it pulls with all of its might to regain what it has lost. During withdrawal, you feel the potency of this instinct most keenly because it is being thwarted.” (p. 100 ).
Anderson suggests that it is important to form a deep bond with ourselves so that we can feel secure, self-reliant, and supported at our base. She argues that it is the most primitive, childlike part of the brain that is so desperate and needy and crying out from being abandoned. “The urgency you feel comes from your most primitive self, which is frightened, alone, and desperately trying to make its presence known. Your task is to adopt this abandoned child…” (p. 102 ).
This technique is called “Separation Therapy”, and it is therapy designed to separate your childlike abandoned self from your mature adult self and then build a relationship with your emotional center. To some people, the manner of the technique is bizarre, awkward, or embarrassing, because it asks us to return to the world of imagination and play-vision. Please remember that even physical healing has been found to result from creative visualization, and you can probably think of how much of an impact movies and books have had on your own psychological states and ways of thinking— don’t forget all the money that is poured into advertising to make us watch the screen, identify with the people who put ideas into our heads, and then go out and buy.
Here are the steps:
1) Step One: Envision in your head yourself at the age of about four. See yourself from the outside, standing back—this gives you emotional distance. “This helps to cognitively draw the needy feelings this child represents out from where they are hidden within your limbic brain.” (p. 103 ). It’s suggested you picture the child standing five feet out from you on your non-dominant hand side (this symbolizes a vulnerable, weaker child self). This child is the part of you that has the feelings of insecurity, worry, ache for kindness, acceptance and approval.
2) Step Two: Envision your adult self as the strong and capable mature person you want to become. Stand tall in your picture. As you make this picture, think of when you have felt the most successful and competent and feed these memories into your visualization of your adult self.
3) Step Three: On a regular basis at a regular time, write out a dialogue between your Adult Self and your Child Self. The adult’s role is to parent the child and give her/him what s/he needs—approval, acceptance, love, admiration, a sense of being heard, a sounding-board, a person to turn to for help. The child self’s role is to share feelings and help the adult self understand them and what is going on. The dialogue begins in a genuinely good parenting manner- the adult greets the child and then draws her/him out by asking about feelings and what is going on/bothering the child. It seems to be conventional to call the adult “Big” and the child “Little”, but personally I think nicknames could be created and used that would be more individually meaningful for the person using this technique.
Anderson writes, “My clients all report remarkable emotional and behavioral changes as a result…” (p. 102). And “As you strengthen your adult self and address the needs of your child, you have taken a giant step in the direction of becoming emotionally self-reliant.” ( p. 114).
Repel Codependent and Dependent Patterns by Building a Dream House
This technique is also a visualization technique. Anderson says that this exercise is based on what she calls the “four cornerstones of self”: celebrating one’s individual separateness, celebrating one’s existence, accepting reality, enhancing one’s ability to love.
Anderson states:
“The exercise brings about rapid results, but it is hard to explain how or why it works. Your goal in abandonment recovery is not simply to read about and intellectually understand the cornerstones but to adopt them and be changed by them. In this way you are using the internalizing process to your advantage. Through visualization, you override the limitations of purely cognitive learning…This visualization is a way of getting past the skepticism and complacency…While I can’t fully explain why the process works, the clinical evidence of its effectiveness comes from many sources: my own clients, other clinicians, abandonment survivors, and professionals from a variety of fields….My clients often initially resist this new technique because visualization requires you to let go of logic and suspend your need to understand….Try it and then decide…”.
Begin: Be guided through the first visualization of your dream house. Anderson suggests taping the visualization description or having a friend read it to you. In my case, I just read each part of it and then visualized. After the first time, you should be able to bring up the house in seconds and do your work.
Anderson has a three-page guided visualization. I am going to put what I see as the heart of it in a more concise manner here.
First: Building a self. Close your eyes, and imagine to create this house you have all the money and resources you can need. Locate your house in a place you would put a dream house and you will put it together in your own ideal dream way. Put your house down in your favorite locale with your favorite weather and geographical features- sun and beach? Cool and mountains? Hot and deserty?
Second: Celebrate your separateness. Put the house together in whatever size suits you, Goldilocks. Make the house ideally yours- exactly right for you. Landscape it, put walls or a moat around it if you want. Then go on to design the interior. How many rooms and what kinds of spaces do you want? Imagine them all.
Third: The Importance of Your Own Existence: Finally get to imagining your favorite room of all; the one you will spend the most of your time in. Create a favorite sitting space that has an amazing view that just reminds you of how great it is to be alive. “Looking at this view, you appreciate the importance of your own existence.” This view touches you deeply and brings all your attention into the moment, into now.
Fourth: Accept any reality: Furnish your favorite room with knickknacks and pictures and rugs and instruments or leave it spare and open and minimalist—as you desire. “Your surrounding should be so complete that this room becomes the one place where you would be able to accept any reality you might be faced with, no matter how difficult, even the one you’re dealing with right now.” All of the items, pictures, special things that can draw your mind away from thoughts that hurt you are here. Futhermore, all the views from this room do the same. “All of it helps you to accept your reality, no matter how challenging.”
Fifth: Wonderful future: Take your house dream two years into the future and imagine what great things you are doing with yourself. How are you spending your time? What neat hobbies and interests occupy you? “Imagine what you are doing in your new life that gives you joy and satisfaction.”
Sixth: Increase your capacity for love: Put friends and family into your world…If you want anyone sharing the house or visiting, visualize them driving up or interacting with you in it. Put pictures of all your social connections on the walls. “Imagine that your capacity for love increases every day. All people in your life feel your love. It has warmed a special place within each of them, connecting your with them in deep and meaningful ways. You feel this connection to those in the next room and with those far away. This new generosity of spirit has grown out of your acceptance of your separateness as a person. It’s because you can appreciate the importance of your own existence and embrace your reality that you have increased your capacity for love.”
Seventh: Now put all those six pieces together into one single image which is YOU. “Its architecture and embellishments represent your substance, your physical and emotional needs as a human being, your most deeply felt dreams and goals. It is the direction your life is taking.” (p. 155)
To Practice:
Pull up the house often and regularly in your mind, making sure that the one big picture includes your four cornerstones. Anderson suggests three times a day for a few minutes or seconds- eyes open or closed, anywhere, it doesn’t matter. Change your house as you need to in order to fit new plans as your dreams change. Some of Anderson’s clients drew a floor plan…”The more vivid the image you have of your dream house, the greater the benefit…My guess is that our wellspring of hope does the work of the visualization.” (p. 155- 156 ).
Well, there you are. The two big techniques to combat feelings and wounds of abandonment from the Anderson book. Try each for a month and see what you think!
[…] 1. Fear: One of the first things you can do is self-talk. Acknowledge that you feel fear and feel it. Letting the fear run through you will allow it to run out of you also. At the same time, reassure yourself that you are an adult, not a baby anymore, and you can survive and take care of yourself. You may want to try the Big-Little exercise to do this as explained in this posting. […]
Fantastic .. I feel Very Strong and iam able to leave all my insecurity . But some kind of pain is there if i understand how much i need from outside world .
So glad I stumbled upon your blog. This is the best approach to abandonment that I’ve seen anywhere. Fabulous! Thanks for such an empowering (cut to the chase) review. I’m off to Amazon to find Susan Anderson’s book but I’ll be back for more (much more) of Finding Serenity. God Bless…
The pain and fear of abandonment is much more common than most people realize. This article has some very creative and potentially useful techniques for dealing with this issue.
So helpful. This morning I was desperate for some relief from my anxiety and the first technique from this chapter really helped me out. Thank you for sharing your insight! I wrote a blog using your technique. Feel free to use it to your credit or share it with others. I believe that healing is a collective process.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/ashley-vailuu/abandonment-exercise-1/466909106675519
Reblogged this on tajournaling and commented:
starting this
I will definitely try! I’m so fed up of feeling so insecure when comes to relationships! Love the idea to visualize both myself as an adult and my little self! I’ll experiment that tonight! feeling positive thank you 🙂