Avoidance

It was a difficult realisation for me during the course of training to really begin to understand my own attachment style and this was highlighted throughout the research process. I found the process of choosing a particular research topic daunting and felt quite overwhelmed by the process. I of course knew that Clinical Psychology training required a research component, however had managed until this point to ‘avoid’ thinking about it or acknowledging that I would actually have to undertake a research project. I had entered into training with a primary focus of learning about different therapeutic models and working with different client groups with complex presentations. I of course wanted to be able to use the scientist-practitioner model, by informing practice with

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evidence, but conducting research to provide that evidence was something that people far cleverer than I did.

However, it could not be denied forever and I had to begin somewhere. At this time it became clear to me that this was not something I was going to be able to do alone, yet my traditional way of managing the academic process was to be self-sufficient and not ask for support or assistance. So, despite this realisation and my growing anxiety I doggedly continued alone and felt myself becoming more overwhelmed. Somewhere in my academic career I had developed the assumption that, if I asked for help, I would be negatively judged or help would not be forthcoming. Because of this I was refusing to do anything differently, despite being aware of my avoidant nature.

Upon reflection I realised that I was engaged in a familiar pattern of trying to defend myself from the experience of becoming vulnerable and seeking help and as a consequence, this need was not being met. I had to believe that I could manage alone! When I now reflect back on this experience, I consider the model of development proposed by Stoltenberg and Delworth (1987). It would seem that I was in the first stage of self-awareness and was very much a beginner in the research process and in need of a high level of support. However, due to my underlying beliefs about myself and others and my penchant to be avoidant of help, I was desperate to prove that I could do this alone and was trying to work as though in the ‘advanced stage’. This was understandably a difficult and overwhelming time for me.

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Thankfully, I was fortunate that a member of the course team understood me well and paved the way for me to seek help. I had taken my first step within the research process towards learning that other people can be reliable and trusted and that it is okay to be a ‘beginner’ when starting a new process.

3.3.2 Anxiety

I needed to be sure that my research was in an area that I was interested in so I could remain motivated and focussed. Having finally developed a research question and decided that I would at least attempt to undertake research, I began to feel that writing my thesis might actually be possible. I therefore chose to select a placement that would run parallel to my research in the area of ASD, as I felt it would be helpful to work with a client group that was connected to an element of my thesis. Whilst working in this service, I was encouraged to think about and hold in mind the impact of attachment style on the presentations of the children I was assessing.

As I moved forward with the research process, developing my dataset and recruiting participants, I began to feel more detached from the process again. It seemed as though I was going through the motions and while I was ‘doing’ something, I was not really connected with the process. With this detachment came an increasing sense of anxiety, which manifested itself in needing reassurance that I would be supported through the research process.

At around this time there was a change in my supervision team and I found myself once again in a place where it was difficult for me to acknowledge that I needed

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support and guidance and was highly anxious about whether it would be available to me. My avoidance was back and I was not allowing myself to engage in my research in any meaningful way, other than to collect data. As I look back I am struck by how much of an impact this change in supervision had on me and how quickly I reverted back to type and my old beliefs and ways of working due to feeling abandoned by my supervisor. I denied that it would effect me or my research in any way and did not attempt to find a replacement supervisor. Fortunately the course team stepped in and my new supervisor again showed a great understanding of my needs and has greatly supported me throughout the research process and challenged my avoidance.

Once my data was gathered I became task orientated and set about completing small elements that would, step by step, take me towards the final thesis. Whilst I felt I had a clearer idea of what I needed to do, my motivation was wavering and I felt I had moved into the second stage (motivation) of the developmental model as proposed by Stoltenberg and Delworth (1987). I fluctuated between feeling highly anxious that it would not be possible for me to complete everything in time and thinking that it would be okay and would get done and feeling relatively calm.

At around this time on placement, my supervisor and I had been discussing transactional analysis (TA; Berne, 1964) in the process of a young person I was working with. I realised that the questionnaire I had used to measure parental bonding (PBI) mapped well onto the theory of parent ego-states in TA and this prompted me to consider how I was relating to myself in terms of my research within the TA framework.

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Early in the writing process, as I spent some time reflecting on this, I realised that many of my internal transactions were as a critical parent, telling myself ‘you’re not working hard enough’ or ‘you’re not clever enough to be doing research’ and that the focus of my project was too large for me to manage. I realised that this internal parent voice was not helping me to feel motivated and that often I would respond as an adaptive child and think ‘what’s the point?’ and rebel against the critical parent by, for example, taking a long lunch break. I would also find myself in child mode, encouraging myself to do something fun rather than reading the growing mountain of journal articles that I had before me. Again, this was not a useful internal dialogue in terms of completing my thesis. If I responded in child mode I would not get any work done but mainly, I found that I responded with a critical parent voice and so the pattern continued.

On realising this, I tried to develop a more helpful internal transaction. I found that, when I was able to adopt a more ‘nurturing’ parent stance with myself, it increased my motivation and I was consequently more able to concentrate. Saying to myself, ‘you can do this, of course it’s difficult but just try your best’ sometimes gave me the drive I needed to sit down and begin working and oftentimes, once I started I was able to continue. At other times I needed to have a more adult than parent conversation with myself. At these times I would tell myself ‘just sit for an hour and then have a break’ or ‘ok, you need to do x, y and z today’ and allow myself to begin with the smallest or easiest task. In this way, I was able to work and be productive as I had a sense of achievement which continued to drive me forward.

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Realising the impact that my own internal dialogue was having on my motivation and on my emotional processes led me to reflect on the findings of my research and how, often, parents do not seem able to provide a good balance between nurturing and control, with unintended consequences for children that can persist into adulthood. Using the theory of TA helped me to gain a greater understanding of how individuals can sometimes provide this balance for themselves if they have the support to be able to learn and apply this information, which is certainly not an easy task, particularly if the voices from their past are overly critical.

A primary focus of my internal critical parent voice was that I had ‘bitten off more than I could chew’ in terms of the topics that I had chosen to cover and at times I would feel overwhelmed with the enormity of the task I had set myself. I spent some time reflecting on why I had chosen to cover such broad subject areas. Yes, my primary interest was in attachment which is a large theoretical and much researched area. ‘Agreed’ said my critical voice ‘but surely you could have designed a study with a narrower focus?’ When I spent some time reflecting on this I realised that it was likely to be linked to an issue of confidence and trust in my own ability. If I focused on broad, sweeping areas, I could be tentative in my conclusions and draw on possibilities from lots of different theoretical stances or sources. However, if I had chosen a narrow focussed area, I would have had to have been more certain of any conclusions I made and having certainty about my own ideas, ability and work is not something I am very good at. This in turn led me to think about my client work.

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Throughout my training I had often received comments on how I hold a lot of complex information in mind and have the ability to work with said information in different ways. A supervisor once commented that this was not necessarily always a good thing. I had not understood the comment at the time, but I now wonder if they meant that by holding so much information and having such a broad focus, my formulations would always include many hypotheses, which may not be useful for the individual client in gaining a greater understanding of themselves or developing an intervention plan.

Fortunately, I had an opportunity to test out this theory during my most recent placement, as my supervisor encouraged me to try to understand the presentations of the children I was working with more fully. Rather than just stating that they had an ASD, I was to attempt to separate out what type of ASD and so rather than clumping, to become more focused and precise in decisions about assessment outcome. This was challenging for me and again raised a question of confidence and lack of belief in my knowledge and ability. However, with guidance, I began to identify ‘atypical’ ASD presentations and found that this gave a greater understanding of the individual presentations and needs to the families I was working with. I realised that sometimes having a narrow focus and not considering every clinical possibility is more helpful for the individual and was something that I was able to do in this context. Thinking about both of these positions will help me in future clinical work and any research that I may undertake, as I will be able to make clinical judgements or research decisions on

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the basis of clinical need or research appropriateness, rather than decisions being dictated by my confidence and own proclivity for the broad.