MAY 8 – MAY 29
IDEAL PARENT FIGURE ATTACHMENT REPAIR
Experience relief and move towards secure attachment
The story
When we get all of our needs met as a child, we grow up with secure attachment – we move through the world with wonder, confidence, self-love, presence, and ease. Many of us didn't, and we carry the wounds of this – like insecurity, fear, and self-criticism.
Ideal Parent Figure is a protocol developed by Dan Brown to help people move into secure attachment and experience the relief of feeling unconditional love, support, nourishment, and guidance. It's incredibly potent – a pilot study found that after four 16-minute visualizations over a month, people with complex PTSD experienced a significant reduction in symptoms.1
I've facilitated IPF sessions for the last year, and I've been so inspired seeing what IPF has given to my clients. I've seen people experience states of okayness they've never felt before, when other modalities aren't hitting. I've seen people move from ever-present distrust into joy and openness, and embody the full essence of their being in a way that radiates out. In our first IPF healing journey cohort, all 11 people reported less avoidant attachment after 6 weeks, and 9 out of 11 reported less anxious attachment.
IPF feels so under-appreciated – relative to its potency, there aren't a lot of ways to receive IPF facilitation. I so deeply want more people to experience the power of the Ideal Parent Figure protocol.
I feel I grew towards more secure attachment. I learned how good it feels to not hold everything on my own, that I always have ideal parents I can imagine to help support me in the most tumultuous of moments. I gained a greater capacity to be with my moment to moment experience, and a deeper ability to ground into faith and acceptance -- faith that the universe is guiding me to precisely the experience I need to have for my greatest unfolding in each moment.
A participant from the pilot course
The course
An experience of attachment needs
We're going to go on a month-long journey together to go deep on the Ideal Parent Figure protocol through:
- Four 2-hour group calls. The calls will focus on each of the six attachment needs (safety, security, regulation, attunement, delight, and exploration), and include meditations and embodied exercises. The calls will be on Thursdays at 11:30am PST (2:30pm EST, 7:30pm GMT), on:
- May 8
- May 15
- May 22
- May 29
- Three 1-1 facilitated calls. Between each group call, we'll work with your specific attachment conditioning in 50 minute 1-1 calls.
- Guided meditations. You'll get access to guided meditations to practice alongside for each of the attachment needs.
The emphasis will be on experience – we'll lay some theoretical groundwork, but will spend the majority of the time giving you an experiential sense of what getting your attachment needs met feels like.
The course is capped at 10 people so that everyone can receive 1-1 calls and the space to share their experience.
My approach to IPF
This course offers a particular flavour of Ideal Parent Figure.
Dan Brown's full attachment repair approach includes three pillars – mentalizing (or meta-awareness, often developed through meditation), collaboration (having a collaborative relationship with your facilitator), and the Ideal Parent Figure protocol. This course is just focused on the IPF protocol, not the full three pillar approach.
I've also gained a huge amount from energy healing and the Reichian character structures, and weave them into the IPF practices. If you are looking to learn more directly about the three pillar approach and IPF in its purest form, you can check out Mettagroup's courses.
The curriculum
Foundation
- What is attachment theory, and what are the different attachment styles?
- Developing an initial relationship with your ideal mother and father
Safety
- Establishing a sense of safety and trust with your ideal parents
Attunement
- What is attunement, and what can deep attunement feel like?
Regulation
- What would it feel like to receive exactly the comfort and support you need to be regulated, in every moment?
Delight
- What if you were loved and appreciated just as you are, without needing to do anything?
- What does it feel like to be delighted in, just for existing?
Exploration
- Receiving support to move out into the world with guidance, trust, love, and excitement for your dreams
- Doing the exploration protocols – including natural innocence protocol (to touch the easeful, innocent state you were in before any of your conditioning happened), and best self protocol (to establish a sense of your best self)
After some of Amanda’s guided meditations, I had this grounding realisation of the different needs of the child and a vivid sense of how they're meant to feel. Moments of delight, soothing, and safety now tangible. And with practice, I knew I could access them anytime :)
Miz
The crew
I'll be teaching the month-long course. I'm also really excited to have Evan Leed, my Ideal Parent Figure mentor, supporting behind the scenes with the course and curriculum.
Amanda Ngo
Hi 😊 I've been a bit obsessed with inner work for the last 8 years. I've explored every modality I could get my hands on – from classic CBT and psychoanalysis, to somatic healing, to wisdom traditions, and energy and shamanic healing.
I have gained so much from the emotional work that I've done and the teachers I've learned from – my experience of being alive has so much more ease, delight, security, and joy. Part of my purpose for being in this world is to help bring this light to others. I'm playing with all the different forms of this – through coaching, workshops, courses, and through many different modalities.
I've been facilitating Ideal Parent Figure sessions for the past year, with mentorship from Evan Leed.
Evan Leed
Evan Leed is a coach authorized to teach on meditation and attachment by George Haas, founder of Mettagroup, with whom he maintains an active mentoring relationship. He also had the privilege of studying attachment under the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown for two years as an original member of the Ideal Parent Figure Masterclass. His work centers around helping his clients come into greater security, resolve attachment wounds and traumas, and experience a deeper sense of meaning in individual pursuits and relationships. His practice is deeply informed by the Dharma and he regularly teaches on the jhanas, high concentration bliss states. He has maintained a daily meditation practice for over fifteen years and has spent over nine months on intensive retreat, in the Theravada and Vajrayana traditions.
What our first cohort said
Amanda's course on IPF is a very supportive entry into this vital work. The experiments and practices during group classes were great windows into the powerful aspects of attachment we wish to be familiar with. In the 1:1 sessions, I immediately felt met and supported in a deep way by Amanda's presence, and her guidance helped me practice IPF much more skillfully than I would have been able to do on my own.
The combination of the theory and examples for each practice worked incredibly well. The exercises were varied and applicable, and it was fun to discover their effects within the context of the cohort. Amanda has a unique skill of attunement, and she really makes the most out of the depth provided by IPF.
During every session with Amanda, there was a deepening of vision and insight. It's so beautiful when the thing that we realize we need becomes certain directly through this deepening of vision and insight.
Understanding that I hold the keys to my wellbeing, inside. And they are within reach. I don't have to impress others, just see the child within me and show love and compassion.
Sometimes during my meditations I would experience a visceral sense of relief when my ideal parents entered the scene. They brought a lot of calm, support and understanding to this period.
This was my first experience of visualization-based or imaginal practices. Despite some resistance and discomfort, I've learned something of the immense value of this. I can use these techniques to reimagine difficult past experiences and rebuild them with beneficial, always-available support.
This was my first experience of visualization-based or imaginal practices. Despite some resistance and discomfort, I've learned something of the immense value of this. I can use these techniques to reimagine difficult past experiences and rebuild them with beneficial, always-available support.
My entire final 1:1 call with Amanda was sublime!! I found a place inside the imaginal where I could primally scream with what felt like every cell in my body -- while feeling the support of an energetic field of infinite, unconditional love (my ideal parent figures in that moment) humming constantly in the background. It was like I could *finally* express something that had never been okay in any other context, *and* be loved while expressing it. Later on in that same session, I had the beautiful experience of feeling like an entire forest was sharing my experience with me, then the whole earth, then the entire cosmos. Simultaneously I felt like the most important being in the universe and the least important. Finally, the call ended with a crazy synchronicity, the whole story of which I won't get into now -- but it truly brought everything from that call and the preceding couple days all together for me. :)
Join the course
If this resonates, join us! The month-long course is $550. If this price feels prohibitive, reach out and we can chat.
Once you apply, we'll set up a 30 min call together to get to know you, make sure this is the right fit, and answer any questions you have.
I'm so excited to spend time with you, if this course feels right for you 😊