Leslie Becker-Phelps – Treating Rejection Sensitive Clients: An Attachment-Based Approach to Turn Rejection into Connection for Clients with Relationship Issues

Outline

How Attachment Styles Relate to Rejection-Sensitivity

• Insecure attachment and vulnerability to rejection
• Elements and functions of the attachment system
• Relationship between insecure attachment and psychopathology
• Limitations of theory and research; potential risks in their application

Build Self-Awareness with Mindfulness and Compassion- Centered Therapies

• Five domains of self-awareness
• Improve compassionate self-awareness with mindfulness
• Self-compassion & secure attachment
• Compassion-centered therapies

Decrease Rejection-Sensitivity with an Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy (ABCT) Approach

• Improve 4 essential modes of functioning
• Assess your attachment style and use this self-awareness to facilitate treatment
• Utilize the therapeutic relationship as a tool to build security

Strengthen Your Clients Emotional Regulation Skills

• Develop awareness of sensations
• Identify and reflect on rejectionsensitive thoughts
• Acknowledge, tolerate, accept, and manage emotions
• Increase awareness of how actions reinforce rejection-sensitivity
• Strengthen mentalizing ability

Develop Your Client’s Resilience to Rejection with Self-Compassion

• Define self-compassion
• Counter rejection sensitivity by nurturing self-compassion
• Use compassionate self-awareness