There has been increasing evidence to suggest that the root cause of much
mental illness lies in a sub-optimal capacity for affect regulation. Cognition and
emotion are intricately linked and cognitive deficits, which are characteristic of
many psychiatric conditions, are often driven by affect dysregulation, which itself
can usually be traced back to sub-optimal childhood development as supported by
Attachment Theory. Individuals with insecure attachment types in their childhoods
are prone to a variety of mental illness, whereas a secure attachment type in childhood
provides a secure base in life. We therefore propose a holistic approach to
tackle chronic anxiety and depression, typical of Axis II clinical disorders, which
is informed by the development of the infant brain in social interaction with its
primary care-givers. We formulate, in a self-administrable way, the protocols governing
the interaction of a securely attached child with its primary care-givers that
produce the capacity for affect regulation in the child. We posit that these protocols
construct, by neuroplasticity and long term potentiation, new optimal neural
pathways in the brains of adults with insecure childhood attachment that suffer
from mental disorder. This procedure is called self-attachment and aims to help
the individuals to create their own attachment objects in the form of their adult self
looking after their inner child.