Containment and Attunement

The Allender Center Podcast

The Allender Center

Psychology, Religion & Spirituality, Mental Health, Christianity, Trauma, Health & Fitness, Theology

4.6 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Containment is both something that we need to receive and it's something that we can provide for others in our roles as parents, spouses, friends, and members of a greater community - particularly during challenging times.

Containment is not about control or maintaining the status quo; instead, it involves creating a safe space for others to express emotions and navigate difficulties.

The concept of containment is closely tied to attunement, which means being aware of others' needs and understanding our own capacity as well.

If you've heard about these concepts but want a deeper understanding and practical implementation in your life, we hope this episode offers you an insightful introduction.

Listener Resources:

To take a deeper dive into the concepts of containment, attunement, and attachment theory in your own life, particularly as they relate to your family of origin, and learn to provide spaces of containment and healing for others, we recommend enrolling in the Story Sage Series online course from the Allender Center.

If you’re a visual learner, we also recommend checking out Lindsay Braman’s article and stunning sketchnotes which wonderfully explain the concepts of containment and attunement.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast.
0:06.7	I'm Dr. Dan Allender.
0:08.7	And I'm Rachel Clinton-Centen.
0:10.5	We're fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world.
0:14.7	And restoration for the heart.
0:17.2	Thank you for joining us.
0:18.5	Let's get this conversation started.
0:33.6	Thank you for joining us. Let's get this conversation started. All right. I just want to begin with a question if you don't mind. Sure.
0:35.6	So I've been at least with you a few times with Evie. And occasionally,
0:45.7	I have the privilege of having a meeting and Evie is there. She's focal. She's engaged. She is, as we would presume, a wild, courageous, playful and don't have to do a lot to read her face. All that's well said. But I've never really asked this. How is her, like her, I'm using maybe a pejorative word,
1:16.0	but how is her screaming wailing? It's like, if I could say my biggest growth edge as a human
1:25.0	in becoming Evie's mother, it has been growing my resilience to bear her suffering without turning to panic because she is
1:38.2	fierce in her agony.
1:41.7	And when she was a baby, like a baby baby, she sounded like a teradactal, like an angry
1:49.1	tarotauradactal. Now her wailing, her screaming wailing, she sounds usually pretty terrified
1:56.5	and or enraged. And I'm getting a lot better at like like, staying grounded so that I can try to figure out what she needs.
2:04.5	But honestly, the first, probably six months of her life, I would panic and be like,
2:08.9	you know, or like flood cortisol or like move to like fight, flight or freeze,
2:13.4	which then meant like I just was totally losing my mind trying to figure out how to help her,
2:19.0	which then was fueling her desperation and rage.
2:26.0	So we've come a long way, but she's very fierce when she gets to that point,
2:32.9	where either she has a need.
	...

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