#em.mft

I can't speak to the research (I'm sure there's some, I just haven't read it), but in my personal experience as a therapist, avoidant attachments are particularly common in children who were parentified and/or neglected. and that makes sense—if you can't trust someone to meet your needs or you are given an age-inappropriate amount of authority, depending on or trusting other people is not going to feel safe or smart. and while Scully didn't experience an abusive level of neglect, I would argue that she grew up in a relatively neglectful household (at least emotionally) based on 1) what we know about her father and his role in the navy and 2) Maggie's behavior throughout the show.

there are a few examples that come to mind for me, but the key one is Maggie's response to Scully's cancer. I want to be clear that I understand the response and recognize that of course she would be hurt and upset; however, I also want to discuss what her response does from an attachment perspective. Although Scully is an adult now, this is an example of what parentification might have looked like as Scully grew up. Maggie is overtaken by her emotions (we also see this in Beyond the Sea) and Scully takes on the role of comforting Maggie, which leaves no room for Scully's feelings. This is an inappropriate role reversal; what should be happening is the adult/parent manages and regulates their emotions enough that the child does not feel responsible for those emotions. A secure attachment figure would have the capacity to act as a container for big emotions, helping the child make sense of their emotions without the emotions becoming too big or uncontrollable. if an adult can't manage their own emotions, it can undermine feelings of safety in the child, because what they are learning is that their adult isn't going to be capable of helping them, so they have to do it themselves and may even have to take on the role of comforting the adult.

of course this is very nuanced and not something i can adequately cover in a single tumblr post, but I do just want to be clear that I'm not saying adults can't have emotions—it's important for kids to see adults experience their emotions so they can learn empathy, their own emotional regulation, and other skills. but what I am talking about is an adult whose emotions overtake them to the point that the child feels like they need to shut down their own emotions and/or need to take responsibility for their parent's emotions, which we see in Memento Mori (and Beyond the Sea, to a lesser extent).

so, while Maggie and Bill weren't abusive parents, the combination of Maggie's emotion regulation and Bill being in the Navy created an environment that could not or would not tolerate Scully's emotions. and in a sense, what we see in her and Mulder are two different responses to the same situation (emotionally unavailable parents).

now, here's something fun — avoidant (Scully) and anxious (Mulder) is one of the hardest combinations to work with because what one person needs is the exact thing that the other person runs away from (anxious person wants reassurance -> gets more anxious and clingy -> avoidant person becomes more avoidant -> anxious person becomes more anxious because their person is being avoidant -> avoidant person becomes even more avoidant because of the anxiety -> on and on and on). but what's interesting is that I think Mulder in particular has enough awareness and emotional fluency that he is able to manage his own emotions well enough to at least keep Scully from running. I think part of that is what I spoke about in the Mulder post, about how his upbringing probably tempered some of his anxious attachment behaviors. so even though I do think Mulder is predisposed to an anxious attachment, he also has more emotional regulation skills than Scully and grew up in an environment that would have encouraged avoidance, and I think that's what allows him to withdraw when he needs to in order to keep Scully from shutting down.

and i think what's so beautiful about msr is that, as unlikely as it is, they eventually find their way to a secure attachment with one another. this happens with each corrective emotional experience where the negative assumption they have about the relationship is proven wrong—i.e., every time their attachment felt threatened but their relationship didn't end. i truly believe that they learn how to love each other over the course of the series. for example, Mulder calms down and settles into their love and life together and Scully becomes less skittish and learns to trust him with her emotions. their relationship is an example of how attachment styles can change over time or within relationships, and we see how hard that was for both of them during the show (we watch them try to figure it out for years). but their love for one another at every stage of their relationship (platonic or romantic) is the constant; it's the reason they don't bolt the first time their attachment styles clash. and it represents one of my own reasons why—the understanding of how powerful a single loving relationship can be in someone's life.

i have actually thought about this a lot and the first thing I always think of is communication. I feel like they don't miscommunicate too often because they either communicate or they don't—when they communicate, they understand each other really well.

to start, though, I'd ask them what they think their relationship is. like do they think this is normal? and I'd ask them that completely seriously because we really need to know if they think this is normal behavior 😂 I would also start with a lot of psychoeducation about the importance of processing and sharing your feelings since both of them grew up in environments where emotions were punished (even if unintentionally).

I'd try to really get across to them the point that nobody can read your mind. You can know someone really well, you can guess with 99% accuracy what their response will be, and you can't KNOW anything unless they tell you. This is a lesson that needs to be learned in multiple settings: people don't know for sure how you express love and affection until you tell them. people can't know what you need unless you tell them. you don't know what someone's intentions are unless you ask them. And even then, you only know with as much certainty as you have trust.

One example I'll (try to) give is "Never Again" ("try to" because it's an episode I avoid at all costs for personal reasons, so I have only seen it twice). I get annoyed because I know a lot of people get mad at Mulder for being inconsiderate and careless, but the thing is, Scully communicated none of what she was feeling in that episode to Mulder. Yes, Mulder could be more perceptive, but she's also punishing him without letting him know why ("punishing" here meaning that she's treating him as though she communicated something and he ignored it, not meaning all the events of the episode), which is unfair. She also assumes she knows why Mulder didn't get her a desk, and I'd argue that she doesn't truly know why. It's possible he didn't get her a desk because he likes having her there in that space with him. That would definitely be a self-centered reason, but it's not malicious, and might change how she responds to what's going on.

I don't think they fully have the language to reflect on what they feel and express it to others (though Mulder is pretty good at it generally, I think he would need some practice recognizing in the moment), so we'd probably do a lot of "sitting with the feeling" without judgment and without trying to change it. I'd also probably practice validation with them (which is not validation as in "your feelings are valid" or "I hear you" — validation as in "I see what you are showing me and you can show me more").

I think Mulder is an interesting case study in one presentation of a disorganized attachment. If I had to guess based on his parents' behavior (particularly his mom's behavior), I would guess he was avoidant—kids with parents who are withdrawn or neglectful often develop avoidant attachments because it is safer to assume that no one is going to meet their needs. But knowing how Mulder is in the show, I don't think avoidant fits quite as well as anxious does, which is why I'd categorize his overall attachment patterns as disorganized.

Teena comes off as emotionally unavailable and shut down in her own life as well, which means Mulder couldn't trust her to be a secure base or safe haven from which he could learn to regulate. But we also see that she can be impulsive and somewhat explosive, such as when she slaps Mulder, which is why the anxious attachment behaviors make sense; anxiety lends itself to hyperawareness of other people's moods and feelings, and Mulder would have benefited from being able to anticipate his mom's reactions and paying close attention to what was left unspoken.

Temperament plays a part in attachment style as well, so while I hypothesize that Mulder is predisposed to an anxious attachment style, I think the anxious behaviors are tempered by his "proper" upbringing. Mulder's family gives off a very "children should be seen and not heard" impression. They care about the image they present to other families and their problems are private and should stay within the family. This type of environment doesn't tolerate emotion, so I think Mulder suppresses his emotions as much as he possibly can; it's not necessarily what he gravitates toward, but learning to be avoidant is almost a response to his anxiety, in a sense, because the anxiety about if he is loved leads to him trying to find a solution (the avoidant attachment behaviors).

The reason I think Mulder is more anxious than avoidant is because we see how deeply he feels throughout the series. Because of that, I think he spent most of his life receiving the message that the way he experiences things is inherently wrong. He may even feel like a failure whenever he experiences emotions because he's trying to fit what his family expects, which could play into some of his more off-putting behaviors (e.g., no matter what I do it's wrong -> something's wrong with me -> I should play into the Spooky persona -> people can't reject me because I am purposefully turning them away). The anxiety also makes sense in the context of his sister's abduction—while that sort of trauma could lead to someone shutting down, it also could leave a permanent sense of searching for something. That searching makes it feel as if something is missing or something isn't right, which leads to anxious behaviors.

Mulder is a character of extremes—there is very little grey area for him in most areas of his life, including his emotions, which creates a very disorganized presentation. He yearns for connection but is also afraid of it. He desperately wants to be loved but can't tolerate it because it's not what he's used to and that unfamiliarity feels unsafe. He's very intuitive and sensitive but can still manage to be completely unavailable and oblivious.

my day-to-day work varies a lot because I work with kids, teens, adults, and couples, and it's also a pretty even mix of all of them! add to that the fact that I have a hybrid in-office/wfh schedule, every day is different 😂 I also have experience working in both county and private practice settings and it looks very different depending on the setting because of the paperwork. at the moment, I work in a private practice that takes insurance, so it's in-between in terms of the amount of paperwork I've had to do for various places I've worked.

my shift is scheduled for 5 sessions back-to-back, which are usually in the afternoon or evening—I'm specifically required to work after-school/work hours for accessibility, so I often don't get off work until 8 or 9pm. Usually, my day is anywhere between 1-5 sessions. Whenever I can, I do my notes right after session during my 10-minute break between clients, but that often doesn't happen, so I just do it as soon as possible (the eternal question of "do I use this 10 minutes to go to the bathroom, sit here and do nothing, shove something in my mouth, or do paperwork" lmao).

I decided to move away from working only with kids because of how much more draining it is, however have specialized training in working with kids under 5 and primarily am "known" by colleagues/people in the community as someone who works with kids. Most days, I do a mix of play therapy sessions, individual talk therapy sessions, and couple work (trained in Gottman). Two days I have meetings in the morning. I also will do add-on collateral parenting sessions where I meet with just the parents of my kids and teens.

And I decided to share some pictures that don't break HIPAA because they're my own works 🥰

scratch paper where I brainstormed/planned for a type of play therapy session (Theraplay)