(The McCluskey model)
 
Fran Guilding BACP accredited Psychotherapist and Trainer
Eliane Meyer BACP accredited Psychotherapist, Trainer and Supervisor
(colleagues of Dr Una McCluskey and trained in this model by her)
 
We are writing to let you know that we are intending to run a therapeutic group based on the McCluskey Attachment Model.  Each week we will explore one of the 7 systems.  There will be a brief theoretical input at the start of each 3 hour session based on the particular system for that week but most of the time will be spent exploring it in your own life. This way of working in a group can be profound but is also supportive and non-threatening.
 
These 7 sessions will be on a Saturday morning from 9.30am until 12.45 at roughly three weekly intervals. Venue York Friargate Meeting house.
 
The following are the proposed dates:
 

1. 23rd February
   
2. 16th March
   
3. 6th April
   
4. 27th April
   
5. 1st June
   
6. 22nd June
   
7. 13th July

 
The cost will be £560 in total, payable in two instalments of £280 each, the first instalment due before the start date, the second due by the end of April.
There is a Student rate of £350 in total with 2 instalments of £175 each.
 
The group would only be viable with at least 6 participants.  The maximum would be 12.
 
If you are interested or have any questions, please do get back to us:
 
[email protected]
[email protected]

This model seeks to address the fact that we work in jobs that require us to respond to the needs of others, too often we don’t create the conditions to support our own personal and psychological development.
 
Experiences of careseeking and caregiving have their roots in infancy and shape our expectations and responses to careseeking and caregiving in adult life.
 
As professionals offering a service in the field of mental health and social care we will be aware of the many different ways that people express their careseeking needs, and how difficult it is sometimes to interpret these accurately and respond.  People who have had contradictory experiences of caregiving will often tend to miscue professional caregivers so that any attempt at caregiving is frustrated and can end up as a frustrating experience for both parties.
 
The dynamics of attachment consist of several goal-corrected systems.  These are careseeking, caregiving, sexuality, exploratory interest sharing with peers, the personal system for self-defence, the internal supportive or unsupportive environments, and the personally created external supportive environment (home/lifestyle).  The theory suggests that these systems work together as a single process to contribute to and maintain wellbeing.

Here goes,

Been a while since I’ve been awake thinking of stuff! The Christmas Tree Lights did it this time. Not a Trigger but more of an analogy I guess. 

Getting them out in Dec all tangled up, hell to untangle. The different sequences pulsing of lights like your heart and thoughts constant pulsing. 

Then the racing, chasing, unable to keep up, raving, raging, tangled. No way out. Round and round you go, trapped in a sequence with no control.

Then boom, full on, bright, too bright, glaring like a rabbit in the head lights, frozen. Exposed to everyone, bright for all to see, but they don’t see the fire inside raging to make them glow so bright. 

Then the come down that slow fading, draining of light, draining of love, draining of hope. Still tangled but now lifeless... not calm but emotionless and numb... the batteries are running low.  Slowly they die, slowly they fade into the distance. No one sees them.

2 years of untangling, going through the sequences. Seeing, feeling, living each and every one. The wire striped to it’s very core. No more sticky tape. Now Held, nurtured and soldered. 

Finally I can put them away in the box untangled, neatly, neatly sorted, still there but now neat and amongst the rest of the decorations. Away for a while. They can come out next year, they are an intricate part of the process, they have to stay, but this time untangled and alas!!!! I’ve found the control box. I’m driving this time.  I decide which sequence of light I want and when.

This time I see the lights for what they are not feel them. They shine bright, they twinkle gracefully.  Embraced. Calm, reflecting and hopeful. 

Merry Christmas. 
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