Dr.Ken Genlik

What is ARPT™? 

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Attachment Repair and Processing Therapy (ARPT)™ aims to support individuals and couples to achieve secure attachment, safety, trust, choice, responsibility, intimacy, closeness, connection and respect in their relationships. It is a systemic and relational treatment modality rooted in Attachment Theory and EDMR’s Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) Theory. The model expands the use and application of attachment theory and AIP while respecting and valuing individuals’ and couples’ gender, identity, relational, cultural, ethnic, spiritual, intergenerational, social and existential contexts and experiences. 

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ARPT focuses on clients’ intrinsic strengths and resilience to support their journey to becoming their own primary Secure Attachment Figure. Furthermore, it addresses and processes maladaptive attachment experiences, attachment ruptures, attachment losses and grief, attachment protest, disconnection, neglect, as well as abandonment due to skewed self-perception, maladaptive internal working models and prolonged and repeated exposure to neglect, abuse and trauma in childhood, relational trauma in intimate adult relationships, and atrocities attributed to war or genocide in a community context. 

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The modality aims to facilitate individuals' and couples’ unique journeys from insecure attachment patterns or styles to a secure attachment pattern by removing impediments to the sense of accomplishment, identity, growth, resilience, connection and self-love in one’s relationship with themselves and others. 

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Attachment theory and Indigenous relational wisdom suggest that we exist in relationships. ARPT assumes that what was broken in the relationship can be repaired and healed through corrective emotional experiences in relationships using interventions promoting neuroplasticity and attachment security. Clients who feel secure in their ability and identity to soothe themselves start feeling skilled in caring for their own emotional, intimate, social and relational needs. Their increased self-intimacy capacity allows them to be alone and authentic without feeling lost, isolated, voiceless, depleted, void, empty, codependent, anxious, avoidant, hopeless or lonely. Furthermore, secure attachment to self allows clients to leave their attachment survival states behind and navigate intimate relationships without being neglectful, confrontational, desperate, hostile or demanding. 

 

In ARPT, the clients act as a secure base for themselves, their partner or community members, who may need their support, comfort, nurturance and reassurance. Experiences of safety, empowerment, trust, connection, choice, responsibility, intimacy, worth, being enough, self-respect and self-love pave the way for emotionally corrective attachment experiences in day-to-day interactions and relationships with self and others. This turns the relationship with self and others into a safe haven and makes healing from trauma, neglect, abuse and atrocities possible in a relational context.

 

In this model, the client and the client's nervous system guide the repair and healing processes. The client’s nervous system leads the pruning of recurrent neural networks in the therapeutic partnership with the clinician by activating the prefrontal cortex and the Reticular Activating System (RAS) through multiple ARPT interventions, ARPT-specific protocols, Attachogram™ and the Attachment Survival States Interview (ASSI)™. Interventions that target specific trauma memories, beliefs and networks accelerate neural pruning throughout the attachment repair process, empowering clients’ connection with self and serving as a secure base for their healing and recovery process. Furthermore, the process turns the clients’ social engagement system on and provides an opportunity to regulate the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Therefore, the quality of attachment connections with self and others reduces activity in the default mode network. It also becomes a significant regulator of neurophysiological activity which has been interrupted due to trauma, neglect, rejection, loneliness, abandonment, war, genocide or colonial practices. 

 

Dr.Ken Genlik initially developed ASSI™ and Attachogram™ in 2012 and ARPT in 2015 to address relationship breakdowns, relational trauma and affairs, attachment insecurities, PTSD, neglect,  self-love and self-esteem issues and  Colonial Complex Trauma. The modality has since been used in Canada, the United States, multiple European countries, Australia and New Zealand to treat thousands of clients by Dr. Genlik, his colleagues and the clinical supervision team.

Today, the core clinical issues which this treatment modality successfully addresses are listed below:   

 Lack of connection with self 

 Self-esteem and self-worth issues

 Losing oneself in intimate relationships  

 Feeling unworthy or not good enough

 Insecure attachment styles, including avoidant, fearful, anxious and disorganized

 Complex Trauma and PTSD  

 Neglect 

 Abandonment and self-abandonment 

 Rejection and fear of rejection

 Affairs and intimate betrayal 

 Loss and Grief

 Loss of Authenticity (People-pleasing)

 Struggles with Self-forgiveness

 Complex Trauma and PTSD in intimate relationships   

 Jealousy and envy in intimate relationships

 Co-dependence in intimate relationships

 Colonial Complex Trauma and Residential School Trauma   

   

ARPT uses the following specific protocols to address the clinical issues identified above: 

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Specific Relational Protocols 

·      ARPT for Secure Relation with Self and the Partner 

·      ARPT for Affairs and Betrayal 

·      ARPT for Relational Loss and Greif 

·      ARPT for Jealousy and Envy in Intimate Relationship 

·      ARPT for Safe Communication in Intimate Relationships 

 

Specific Individual Treatment Protocols

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·      ARPT for Self-Love and Self-worth 

·      ARPT for Positive Self-esteem 

·      ARPT for Acute Stress Disorder 

·      ARPT for Complex Trauma

·      ARPT for PTSD 

·      ARPT for Rejection and Resentment 

·      ARPT for Abandonment 

·      ARPT for Loneliness 

·      ARPT for Neglect 

·      ARPT for Forgiveness 

·      ARPT for Loss and Grief 

·      ARPT for Colonial Complex Trauma 

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