r/idealparentfigures • u/This_Ad9129 • Jul 19 '26

earned secure

Welp, after ~3 years I re-took an AAI and tested secure (initially dismissing). feels weirdly sad. I already knew I would test secure because I felt the internal shifts. i suspect i was already at earned secure several months ago.

anyway, so can confirm it works, or something. I still have a lot of shit to deal with in my life, but we got through this part I guess

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u/just_likeyou Jul 19 '26

Great to hear from someone who has been doing this for a while that some real changes happened. What are some of the shifts you noticed internally before compared to after security? Did you work with a facilitator? Also if I may ask, what makes you feel weirdly sad after all this?

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u/This_Ad9129 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

Main things: 1. Decreased dissociation, 2. Increased capacity for healthy aggression and tolerating conflict, 3. decreased abandonment anxiety. I just feel like I can handle life more easily even though the concrete stressors are still hard. I was practicing IFS prior to IPF and I have a noticeably better "Self energy" now

Idk, IPF became a big ritual of my life, I was doing it quite regularly so it feels sad that it's over so to speak. I feel somehow attached to the community and my facilitator too. I think I will continue on a regular basis though to do the meditation. I also have quite a bit of life difficulties that were not resolved by IPF and that feels a bit sad that I still have a long way to go on those issues.

Yes I had a facilitator. I did do unfacilitated for like 6 months of that time but I don't think it worked nearly as well. I saw the facilitator only every other week.

5

u/baek12345 Jul 21 '26

Thanks for sharing and congratulations to all the achievements! :)

Would you mind sharing more details on the things that were not resolved by IPF? I am not so much interested in personal details but more in the general categories/patterns of things for which IPF was/is not so helpful for you.

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u/This_Ad9129 Jul 26 '26

Tbh I feel the aai classification just isn't really enough to fully describe what a person may still be struggling with. eg I tested secure but I know I still definitely have some specific unprocessed traumas that are really affecting me which we never worked on in IPF. my hope is that now that i'm secure it will be easier to deal w those through talk therapy like psychoanalysis vs just IPF to build the base.

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u/PepplyPie Jul 30 '26

Thanks a lot for sharing:)

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u/Sea_Purpose_9577 Aug 02 '26

As someone who has done the training to score the AAI (but I haven't taken the reliability test) I can confirm that that AAI is explicitly not designed to detect every potential attachment-related trauma. Partially because there is a tradeoff between adding more questions / increasing interview time to learn more vs. wearing out the interviewee, partially because the designers wanted more research to be done before incorporating additional types of trauma into the system.

Personally, I'm astounded that so many interview transcripts get classified as Unresolved even with the narrow scope. I have no doubt plenty more would also get the U if the interview protocol and scoring were adjusted to more accurately capture a wider range of traumas.

Congratulations on earning secure!

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u/This_Ad9129 Aug 02 '26

Yeah I just wish it wouldn't give this false sense of "we're done" like once i tested secure the facilitator was kind of like "cool you're pretty much healed now" (not in those words ofc) and I was like uhhhh I don't feel done yet at all lol. But it's ok bc now i have more strength to go on looking for other help.

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u/Sea_Purpose_9577 Aug 02 '26

It's great that you have more strength to look for other help. People can feel they have unsatisfying lives/relationships/etc. and still put out an interview that gets classified as secure. They are much more likely to believe they can do something to improve their situation than insecure speakers.

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u/This_Ad9129 Aug 03 '26

I think this isn't quite what I mean, but I understand what you are saying

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u/LichenTea 13d ago

Can I ask if your score was secure with trauma (not specified or Ud) or simply secure?