Opening the attachment trauma floodgates: Preoccupation with Personal Suffering

ABSTRACT

This chapter raises the visibility of chronic incomplete mourning characterized by Preoccupation with Personal Suffering, a state of mind that is invisible in the discussion of attachment-informed psychotherapy. It presents the case of a 36-year-old woman who, upon returning home from a religious mission, began experiencing unexplainable anxiety that brought her to a therapist for an assessment. Because of the COVID pandemic, the assessment was completed via telehealth. Collaborative Therapeutic Assessment framed the client's questions about her childhood. The Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) was the catalyst for remembering murky experiences of failed protection and abuse. The chapter discusses the results of the AAP and MMPI-2 to help the client make sense of her trauma symptoms. The chapter chronicles through a Collaborative Therapeutic Assessment of the client's Preoccupation with Personal Suffering, including prominent signs of mental derealization revealed during telehealth assessment and the importance of supporting highly traumatized clients to grieve by making a transition to a "local” therapist when telehealth is not deemed optimal. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Carol George, Julie Wargo Aikins, and Melissa Lehmann;individual chapters, the contributors.