The Cure of a Fear of Abandonment - Resources?

August 13, 2008 9:25 AM

Abandonment - What is the Cure?

I've been watching A&E Intervention recently and I've noticed that one common key element that runs through all addicts is the issue of abandonment. Someone, somewhere left them. Most if not all in early childhood. Who due to parents divorcing and who through other reasons causing disintegration of the family unit.

My question is this - has anyone ever been able to cure someone of the core issue of fear of abandonment where they were totally released from this hell? I've heard mention of Ibogaine as being a way through and out of the trauma, approaches in therapy where on nurtures ones inner child and still others where there is something called reparenting oneself. How successful are these approaches and are they even considered cures? And lastly, where would one find out all they can on the latest cutting-edge therapies in treating very early childhood trauma from a neuroscientific/psychological/spiritual vantage point?

Thanks so much.

posted by watercarrier to health & fitness (7 comments total)

EMDR is something bring looked at. I get the impression the professional community is a bit split regarding it's usefulness.
posted by Carbolic at 10:25 AM on August 13, 2008

My wife is currently undergoing EMDR for her PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I bring this up only to say that, in her case, her abandonment issues have gotten much stronger throughout the EMDR therapy, although it is working for her PTSD.
posted by dwbrant at 12:52 PM on August 13, 2008

I'm hugely generalizing here, but my answer is this- drug addicts lie. And drug addicts are generally people who are not comfortable with reality and who are not able to cope with change. So I'd posit that abandonment *isn't* the core issue, it's the excuse addicts use to justify their habit. And that maybe they did feel abandoned at some point, but instead of dealing with it in an appropriate manner, they chose to escape reality via some drug or another. And so they never really dealt with their issues, instead, focusing on being a drug abuser. I'd call it a co-morbidity at best.
posted by gjc at 6:22 PM on August 13, 2008

Oh, and to answer your question as to what's the cure for abandonment? Learning to deal with the fact that other people will make choices that we don't like, and accepting that it's their right to make those choices.
posted by gjc at 6:24 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I can't imagine a trial to evaluate treatment regimen for patients with childhood trauma, but there are trials evaluating treatment for disorders that may be related (eg, PTSD, BPD, etc).

If you want to see what is "cutting edge" (or at least up to date) for pharmacologic treatments, in that the drug is either currently under assessment, will be, or was recently evaluated in a clinical trial, go to www.clinicaltrials.gov In the search term, but your disorder -- you can enter PTSD and will get a listing of the current pharmacologic therapies (and some behavior therapies) under assessment in clinical trials.

Which leads to your second idea (ibogaine as a treatment for patients with addiction) - this was once an idea explored by the a few in the medical/scientific community, but this agent has been found to kill cells in the cerebellum (this research was conducted in the 90s) --notice if you put ibogaine into a search term for clinical trials, nothing comes up.

Here is a place you can look up info like this:

www.pubmed.com

In the search term, to find an article related to ibogaine and cerebellar cell death, enter 8377927 [uid] Similar articles will also be listed - but all of these are from peer-reviewed articles. If you find an interesting agent (perhaps in clinical trials), but that into the search term and see what comes up.

sorry this isn't really helpful -- I just wanted to provide more info as to places to look up current, up to date info.
posted by Wolfster at 7:43 PM on August 13, 2008

EMDR worked great for me. It helped a lot though. I had (have?) borderline personality disorder - the first diagnostic criteria is fear of abandonment, and the disorder is famously the one that everyone hates. After 2 1/2 years of conventional therapy plus 8 weeks of EMDR, I no longer met the diagnostic criteria (you have to have at least 5 of the 9 symptoms). In the 5 years since I completed therapy, I have had my ups and downs but have never fully relapsed into meeting the diagnostic criteria for BPD.

(I realize you're talking about addicts, but I thought this might be helpful seeing as how BPD sufferers are so reviled and EMDR was what helped my fear of abandonment the most.)
posted by IndigoRain at 7:16 PM on August 16, 2008

has anyone ever been able to cure someone of the core issue of fear of abandonment where they were totally released from this hell?

Yes, years of therapy, study and doing emotional homework have been effective for me.

approaches in therapy where on nurtures ones inner child and still others where there is something called reparenting oneself. How successful are these approaches and are they even considered cures?

Having witnessed hundreds of people over 14 years in "adult children" groups heal with these approaches, myself included, I can say from personal experience that these techniques can and do work. Another term for a similar approach is from object relations theory and that is achieving healthier object constancy.

And lastly, where would one find out all they can on the latest cutting-edge therapies in treating very early childhood trauma from a neuroscientific/psychological/spiritual vantage point?

Abandonment Recovery

Prozac helped me.

omega-3-fatty acids

I've heard DBT (Dialectical behavioral therapy) is useful and it incorporates the neuroscientific/psychological/spiritual.

Also Schema Therapy

EFT

Neurofeedback, article

posted by nickyskye at 12:08 AM on August 20, 2008