Self-Attachment: An integra Self-Attachment: An integrative and holistic psychotherapeutic technique

We have since 2010 developed a new integrative psychotherapy, called self-attachment, which is based on attachment theory, neuroplasticity and long term potentiation and is informed by computational models in Neural Networks, Re-inforcement Learning and Game Theory [13]. The technique, which is essentially a self-help method may need to be initially introduced and supervised by a psy-chotherapist, and can also be facilitated by virtual reality. The new technique is supported by a series of simulations in arti_cial neural networks [12] and by a square law of attraction for strong patterns, i.e., cognitive or behavioural patterns that have been strongly stored or sculpted in the network [9]. Self-attachment aims to create neural circuits in the brain that correspond to secure attachment in individuals with a childhood background of insecure attachment [13]. It provides an algorithmic framework for a holistic approach to psychotherapy and computational psychiatry [11]. It is distinguished among all existing therapies, on the one hand, by activating the dopaminergic reward system in the brain, and, on the one hand, by virtually re-simulating the past traumatic experiences of the individual in order to reprocess them repeatedly to obtain an optimal outcome. The protocols present a self- help therapeutic technique to tackle psychiatric disorders including severe depression, anxietyand post traumatic stress disorder.Self-attachment has been proposed as an extension of Attachment Theory [3], a dominant paradigm in developmental psychology pioneered by John Bowlby. According to Attachment Theory, a toddler has one of four types of attachment with her/his primary caregiver depending on their relationship, crucial for emotional development in life: Secure attachment (loving parent), Avoidantly insecure (rejecting parent), Anxiously insecure (inconsistent parent), Disorganisedly insecure (frightening parent). In the early and pre-verbal programming of the infant's brain, the attachment schema regulates the genome and sculpts the stable patterns in our implicit memory and learning that become the basis of our outlook and conduct in the social world [16, 7, 8]. We have modelled the four attachment types by Deep Belief Nets [4] In self-attachment therapy, the human brain is considered as a biological computer with neural pathways as its architecture and the individual as the user and the operating system. The self-attachment protocols re-simulate the early environment and mirror the interaction of a good enough parent with an infant. The first stage entails an internal bonding in the individual which would mirror the child-parent bond. Experiments in recent years on mothers who look at photos of their children and adults who look at photos of their lovers under fMRI show that human bond making, subjectively experienced as falling or being in love , is based on the activation of the caudate nucleus or the reward system of the brain, a dopamine rich structure in the centre of the brain [2]. A similar outcome has been obtained with devout Christians praying under fMRI [1]. These results indicate that establishing a passionate relationship with an abstract object of devotion leads to similar neural activation as having a maternal bond with a child.