Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

Tired of Feeling Insecure in Your Relationships?

The innovative Three Pillars Approach developed by Dan Brown, David Elliott and colleagues, is designed to help you heal from insecure attachment and develop the skills of secure functioning.

Here's what sets it apart:

  • Moves Beyond Coping: Unlike traditional methods that focus on coping with negative emotions, the Three Pillars Approach actively builds positive experiences.

  • Creates Lasting Change: We don't just modify your existing attachment style; we create a brand new "secure map" in your mind.

  • Faster Results: Experience significant improvement in 50-150 sessions, compared to years of traditional therapeutic approaches.

The Power of the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPF)

IPF is a core part of the Three Pillars Approach. It uses personalized imagery to create a safe and nurturing space where you can experience the secure attachment you never had.

Benefits of Working with a Trained Facilitator:

  • Avoid Pitfalls: A trained professional can guide you in creating effective secure imagery and avoid common challenges.

  • Co-create Your Healing: You're in the driver's seat, working collaboratively to build a secure map that feels right for you.

  • Address Specific Needs: Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) allows you to heal from your unique developmental deficits and get the support you craved but never received.

What is the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol ?

The Ideal Parent Figure Protocol, developed by Daniel P. Brown, PhD and David Elliott is an advanced method for healing attachment disturbances in adults. Fundamentally, the unconscious mind does not distinguish between imagined experiences and those coming from memory. Even the memories we do have are nothing more than reconstructions infused with the sense data of each present moment we recall it in. Have you noticed how some memories hold different meanings, shifting and feeling different over time?

Using structured visualization practice, new and positive attachment experiences can be directly experienced. Ideal parent figures fill the role of providing the self-as-child with corrective experiences. It's important to root the practice in early memories, where our attachment strategies first begin to come online, shaping how we see the world and ourselves. 

The Five Qualities of Secure Attachment in IPF

Extensive attachment research shows these Five Primary conditions contributing to Secure attachment. Children growing up in insecure households know what their caregivers are capable of, the kind of care that is available and which is not. To protect themselves from greater internal distress, they give up hoping and trying to get the care they want. It's more painful to keep trying and being rebuffed than to simply give up on these possibilities. Over the years, as the child develops and matures into adulthood, little or no trace of these early desires of good-enough-care remain. The mind simply re-creates a sense of reality based on what happened early in life as if it's still true. In this way, limitations imposed by a difficult childhood persist into later life, greatly diminishing quality of life across-the-board. The Ideal Parent Figure Protocol reverses these largely imperceptible restrictions. As one of my clients put it: “It's bittersweet, amazing it can happen now, sad it didn’t happen sooner.“

Safety and Protection

The primary function of the Attachment System in all mammals, from an evolutionary standpoint is protection. The founding father of Attachment Theory, John Bowlby wrote extensively and researched the role of establishing safety in the formative early life and as it continues over the human lifespan. Ideal parents champion fierce protectiveness of the child, yet never crossing the line into overprotectiveness which can limit the development of the self.   

Sense of Being Seen and Known

In a secure caregiving environment, the parents are keenly aware of and responsive to the child’s present moment behavior, their internal state and their zone of proximal development i.e their developmental capacity appropriate to their age. Caregivers that do this well, create a mutually satisfying experience where the child feels deeply seen and known, can be in a state of flow with optimal levels of challenge and support, creating broaden and build cycles for the child to grow and flourish. 

Sense of Being Valued

Expressed Delight is the foundation of feeling good about yourself, a developmentally appropriate healthy self-esteem. When the sense of self is called up, good feelings simultaneously come up. Insecurely attached individuals either lack positive feelings about themselves or have primarily negative feelings towards themselves. Secure parents not only celebrate their children’s successes and achievements, they feel and freely express genuine joy in the child’s very being, who they are. In this way, the child feels valued. They perceive the sparkle in their parents eyes, directly linking it to their sense of self.

Comfort and Soothing

In times of need, when the child is dysregulated and outside their emotional window of tolerance sensitive caregivers provide consistent soothing and reassurance. Repeated exposure to re-regulating experiences becomes internalized, in the internal working models, in a deep sense of others being able to provide comfort and soothing. As symbolic representation comes online and becomes elaborated, the child less, not more direct physical or verbal reassurance. They can simply call up the model of being reassured in their mind and have the direct felt experience of being comforted. The mind and all it holds can be regulated from within. Insecure attachment is most often prominently marked by emotional regulation deficits. 

Support and Encouragement

Secure parents actively support their children’s interests, autonomy and burgeoning sense of self. These parents create an environment for the child not only to succeed in, but also experiment, fail and recover so they can discover who they are. These same parents tolerate and actively encourage all of the unique qualities that make the child different from themselves, so they can develop a genuine, healthy sense of self. These caregivers put aside their own agendas for who “the child should be and what they should do”. The big payoff of attachment repair is to explore without inhibition and pursue your own deepest meaning in life. 

How the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol Works

Unlike traditional therapeutic modalities, the relational focus is on the experience of the client-as-child with their Ideal Parent Figures. First, the focus is deepened inwardly, towards a focused yet alert state. Then you imagine yourself as a young child with ideal parent figures who are perfectly suited to you and your nature in all the right ways. Specific attachment-promoting qualities are developed and enhanced through repeated imagery. In Addition to the Five Qualities of Secure Attachment, physical presence, consistency, reliability and interest all promote secure attachment. Most corrective of these experiences are the positive opposite qualities of the actual biological parents. If the actual parents were cold, the ideal parents are warm and present.

Difficulties imagining positive experiences reflect and mirror early life adversity, providing an insight into what likely happened throughout childhood. It’s perfectly natural to have difficulty imagining close and loving caregiving experience if you primarily experienced cold and distant parents. There are no entries in the database for the positive experience you wished for but never got. You have to actively work and develop the mind, opening up to the positive. Despite it being challenging at first, it's all the more reason to try to generate the felt sense of being cared for in this way now. Opening up the mind to these possibilities now. 

Soon enough, the new map is stacked with positive entries, and the secure attachment promoting qualities become stable and extend in duration. The culmination of the early part of the work, is an internalized secure base, and concurrent activation of the exploratory system. Venturing out into the world, spontaneous play, introspection and countless other behaviors can be the manifestation of early exploration. Under stress, naturally proximity-seeking and preference for the caregivers indicates internalized safe haven. Together, these features working in an organized and coherent way culminates in earning secure attachment. The secure database is complete and operates automatically under any circumstances and supersedes any insecure entries. 

  • The Three Pillars Approach is an innovative, targeted intervention designed to address specific areas of need in Adults with Attachment Disturbances. This method tailors three key interventions to repair deficits associated with insecure attachment. First, mentalizing-based interventions enhance reflective ability, which is often poor in insecurely attached individuals. These interventions are effective in treating personality disorders and disorganized attachment by increasing reflectivity. Second, collaborative behavior, which is often deactivated in those with severe attachment disturbances, is brought online. Collaboration is vital for relational healing and exploratory behavior. Third, the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) protocol establishes a stable, positive map for secure attachment. Together, these pillars foster the development of secure functioning skills and the internalization of a secure attachment map.

  • Several studies highlight the efficacy of the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) method in treating attachment-related issues. A 2016 pilot study by Dan Brown and colleagues found that all 12 participants achieved secure attachment within 1 to 3 years. Remarkably, 8 of these participants reached secure attachment within just one year! Prior to treatment, 8 participants were classified as disorganized with low coherence of mind scores and unresolved trauma or loss. By the end of treatment, all patients had attained secure attachment and significant improvements were noted in coherence of mind (from 2.21 to 7.91) and reflective functioning ability (from 1.68 to 4.36). This transformation highlights the IPF method's effectiveness for facilitating profound healing and long-term improvements in attachment security and emotional well-being.

  • Similarly, Federico Parra's 2017 study demonstrated significant improvements in quality of life for individuals with childhood trauma and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). The study reported substantial reductions in psychological symptoms and traumatic dysregulation, with many participants continuing to use IPF protocol recordings as a coping tool after treatment. The Ideal Parent Figure protocol also led to improvements in emotional regulation, impulse control, interpersonal relationships, and systems of meaning (internal working models of self and world). Notably, several participants shifted from disorganized/insecure to organized/secure attachment styles. Overall, these studies suggest that the IPF protocol is a promising approach for treating CPTSD and related attachment disturbances, resulting in significant improvements in psychological well-being and quality of life.

Ideal Parent Figure Protocol: Grounded in Evidence

Changes in attachment classification for 12 patients before and after Ideal Parent Figure protocol treatment. The x-axis categorizes the patients into four attachment classifications: "Cannot Classify (CC)," "Preoccupied (E)," "Unresolved (Ud)," and "Earned Secure (F)." The y-axis represents the number of patients in each category.

  • Pre-Treatment: Eight patients (66.6%) were classified as "Cannot Classify (CC)," four patients (33.3%) as "Preoccupied (E)," and six patients (50%) had unresolved status (Ud).

  • Post-Treatment: After an average of 3.4 years of treatment, all 12 patients (100%) had attained "Earned Secure (F)" status.

Impact of the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) method on two key psychological measures: Coherence of Mind and Reflective Functioning.

  • Coherence of Mind:

    • Before IPF protocol, participants had a mean score of approximately 2.2 (blue).

    • After IPF treatment, the mean score improved significantly to around 7.9 (green).

  • Reflective Functioning:

    • Before IPF, participants scored around 1.7 (in blue).

    • Post-IPF, scores increased to approximately 4.4 (shown in green).

Brown DP, Elliott DS. Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair. W. W. Norton & Company; 2016.

Effect of Ideal Parent Figure treatment on participants with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) across four key psychological measures. Each chart compares the mean scores before and after treatment

  1. Symptom Severity: Reflects the severity of CPTSD-related symptoms, as measured by the DESNOS scale. There is a notable reduction in symptom severity post-treatment, with a clear decrease in the mean score from approximately 61 to 50.

  2. Psychological Symptoms: Assessed by the Global Severity Index (BSI), this chart shows a reduction in general psychological symptoms, with mean scores dropping from 2.09 pre-treatment to 1.52 post-treatment.

  3. Trauma Markers: Based on the AAP assessment, the frequency of trauma markers has significantly decreased post-treatment, with mean scores lowering from 15.53 to 10.07.

  4. Quality of Life: As measured by the WHOQOL-BREF scale, this chart shows an increase in participants' quality of life, with scores improving from 9.43 pre-treatment to 11.32 post-treatment.

Parra F, George C, Kalalou K, Januel D. Ideal Parent Figure method for CPTSD: a pilot study. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1849. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01849