Welcome to Securely Attached! I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Bren. I’m passionate about helping parents to understand the building blocks of child development and how to harness the power of the parent-child relationship so they can calmly and confidently respond to any problem that arises, feel more in sync with their child, and truly enjoy parenting!
In this episode I’ll tell you a bit more about myself and my journey to create this podcast. I’ll share about how and why I pivoted my clinical work from adults with trauma histories to parenting – and it’s not why you might think!
1:20
LET’S START WITH A BRIEF INTRODUCTION – HI, I’M DR. SARAH BREN
- I’m a clinical psychologist
- Mom of a 3 year old son and 1 ½ year old daughter
- In the past I focused on working with adults who had experienced chronic and pervasive trauma in their childhoods. The therapy focus was on helping them to heal attachment wounds from their childhood and begin the process of learning to validate their emotional experiences, regulate their emotions, and build up their sense of self so they could use that as an internal guide versus always having to seek external validation and feel lost or empty if that wasn’t available to them.
2:10
I BECAME A MOM AND MY BIG PIVOT HAPPENED – BUT NOT FOR THE REASON YOU MIGHT SUSPECT
2:20
MY INTRODUCTION TO RIE (RESOURCES FOR INFANT EDUCARERS)
- Developed in the 1960s by a woman named Magda Gerber who was deeply influenced by the theory of attachment
- Emphasis on thinking of a child as a whole being from the moment they are born
- This philosophy children to feel seen and known by us, and this is all deeply deeply influential in the development of secure attachment
3:23
PRACTICING RIE WITH MY OWN CHILDREN
- How these practices were things I was already doing with with my adult patients in therapy as a means of helping them to heal their own attachment wounds and insecure attachment styles
3:52
I AM DEEPLY INFLUENCED BY RELATIONAL MODELS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
- Therapeutic relationship is like a practice relationship
- How new relationships and attachment styles become part of our sense of self
4:22
THIS THERAPEUTIC WORK IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE WORK OF PARENTING
- How our children form their own sense of self
4:47
WHY I PIVOTED MY TRAJECTORY
- I can help individuals heal their attachment wounds, or I can educate parents on how to form secure attachments to inform their parenting and support healthy child development
- Using “preventative medicine” to set children up for the greatest chance of success
- Developing healthy resilience and connection and respect for their inner drives and inner voice
5:52
WHY I’M STARTING THIS PODCAST
- Expanding my work in my mission of helping to raise healthy, resilient, kind, creative, powerful children, who will make a better world,
- And to make those parenting years just a bit easier, calmer and more enjoyable
- How being seen a respected helps children to cooperate and listen
- And how understand how a child’s brain, biology, and attachment drives work helps caregivers parent children
- Helping parents feel confident and calm in their parenting with me to guide and support you and to be a vetted, researched, and psychologically informed source of information
7:32
I RECOGNIZE THAT EACH PARENT IS THE EXPERT IN THEIR OWN CHILD
- You already have everything you need to be exactly the parent your child needs you to be.
- This podcast will help you connect to and trust yourself
- It takes work to reorient yourself to your inner knowledge and trust in your children
- Allow your child to be the main source of your parenting information – you just need to know how to interpret it and use it as a guide to build your relationship with them
9:43
WHY DID I NAME THIS PODCAST SECURELY ATTACHED?
- Attachment theory – attachment is a primary biologically based and hardwired drive for a child to instinctively form a bond with their mother, or father, or whomever is their primary caregiver to increase their proximity to safety and ensure survival
- Because it is such a powerful biological drive, it deeply informs the attention and motivation of almost every action our children take – so it’s an incredibly useful tool for understanding our children better.
- Focus on supporting security, trust and safety in the parent-child relationship and everything else (play, learning, relationships, self identity) will flow from that
11:23
SECURE ATTACHMENT IN EARLY RELATIONSHIPS IN CHILDHOOD ACTUALLY ENDS UP BECOMING THE FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ONESELF.
- Parents have some say in this, unlike many aspects of child development (child’s temperament, or the sensitivity of their nervous system)
12:02
WE CAN FACILITATE AN ENVIRONMENT FOR OUR CHILDREN THAT SUPPORTS THIS NATURAL BIOLOGICAL PROCESS OF ATTACHMENT.
- So how do we do that? Answering this question will be the focus of this podcast
- This ongoing process evolves as your children do, so this is relevant for children of all ages (and even adults, for that matter)
- Things like attunement, being a secure base, helping them to work through problems on their own while still supporting them through emotional coaching, scaffolding, validation of their emotions – just to name a few
- Attachment plays a huge role in healthy emotional, social, and cognitive development
13:09
WHAT YOU’LL HEAR ON THE PODCAST
- Deep dives into specific topics citing research in a way that is easily digestible
- All in an effort to help parents raise securely attached children who will grow up to participate in the next generation as individuals who are healthy, secure, resilient, and strong
13:44
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR ON THIS PODCAST.
- What is your biggest pain point in your parenting journey right now? – You are not alone in this struggle.
- Go to @securelyattachedpodcast on Instagram and DM me your pain point so you can get it off your chest and into my open hands
Don’t be a stranger!
I want to hear from you! Send me topics you want me to cover or a question you want answered on the show!
✨ DM me on Instagram at @securelyattachedpodcast or @drsarahbren
✨Send an email to info@drsarahbren.com
✨ And check out drsarahbren.com for more parenting resources
