r/idealparentfigures

Hey everyone, I'm offering another eight-week course on attachment repair and self-development using the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Daniel P. Brown's Best Self work.

We'll start with IPF and the development of a secure base, along with teaching around attachment theory to help us make sense of working through our insecure patterns. From there we'll look at how to bring greater security to existing and new relationships. Then we'll move into the second half of the course, where we use the Best Self protocols to work on self-development, self-agency, and self-esteem to expand our capacity to live fuller, more purposeful lives.

One of the reasons I've continued offering this course is that while IPF itself is rather widely available, the Best Self work that Dr. Brown offered alongside IPF is still rarely taught. I think the two belong together: attachment repair gives us a secure base from which to understand who we really are, feel effective at getting our needs met, and like ourselves unconditionally.

Each week includes guided practice as well as plenty of time for discussion. You don't need any prior experience with IPF, attachment theory, or meditation.

For anyone who signs up within the first 72 hours after I post this, I'm offering a free one-on-one meeting with me before the course begins. We can talk about where you are in your own attachment repair journey, what you'd most like to work on, and how you can get the most out of these eight weeks.

More information here: https://www.evanleed.com/best-self-fall-2026

If you'd like a discount please send me a DM. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

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​Evan Leed was inspired to help others after making his own journey from disorganized to secure attachment. He was authorized to teach on meditation and attachment by George Haas, founder of Mettagroup, with whom he has maintained an active mentoring relationship for seven years. He trained in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Three Pillars model of attachment repair for two years under the methodology's co-creator, the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown. 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. He has maintained a daily meditation practice for over seventeen years and has spent over nine months on intensive retreat in various Theravada and Vajrayana traditions.

This course is offered in a meditation-based modality. It is not intended to be psychotherapy or a replacement for psychotherapy.

https://www.evanleed.com/best-self-fall-2026

Hi all,

I follow a really nice, open minded psychologist who runs many scalable micro-interventions and rapid digital trials, usually for a few hundred people at a time. I won't reveal his name in this space as I want to keep his mailbox clean haha. But I will say that given sufficient motivation I believe there's a decent chance he could conduct a short, web-based RCT on IPF, comparing it to other techniques. I can't promise anything though, I'm just telling my opinion.

I recently found out about IPF, used a 19-minute guided IPF recording (from Attachment Repair) and experienced an immediate state drop in acute fear of rejection/abandonment from ~8.75/10 to 5/10. At a 24 hour check, I was maintaining at 6/10. I wrote him about this experience and with the research synthesis/proposals I included below, and this is what he answered:

"Hi [my name], thanks for sending this meditation, it's interesting. We're unlikely to run a study on it, but glad you sent it."

So my question to you - do you think there's anything I can add that would interest him significantly more in exploring this, that there's a significant research gap in this area, and that researching this could help many people? Any other additional comments will also be happily received. I also want to emphasize that I value his space and autonomy, so I'm not looking to preach to him, but rather to provide interesting information.

The research synthesis/proposals I sent him is below for those interested:

(Disclosure: AI helped me write the below sections)

Looking into the empirical literature, there is a clear, high-leverage research gap that [his org] is uniquely equipped to test:

Clinical Claims vs. Empirical RCTs: The IPF protocol (Brown & Elliott) has strong clinical backing for remapping attachment schemas, but virtually zero standalone, pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) data isolating it as a scalable digital tool.

Synthetic Ideal vs. Real Memory Recall: Most existing attachment-priming studies that show large state boosts in felt security (e.g., Deng et al., 2016; Baldwin et al., 1996) ask participants to recall a real loving relationship. For individuals with adverse or neglectful childhoods, this often backfires because no secure figure exists to retrieve. IPF solves this by constructing a completely synthetic, perfectly attuned caregiver from scratch, but this distinction has never been isolated and empirically tested against real-memory recall or active controls.

The Mechanism / Framing Gap: Meta-analyses on Compassion-Focused Therapy (Petrocchi et al., 2024) and standalone Compassion-Focused Imagery (Maner et al., 2023) show that self-directed or abstract compassion often triggers acute resistance - termed "fears of compassion" or a parasympathetic threat response - in highly self-critical or insecure individuals. It is an open empirical question whether IPF’s explicit developmental framing (parental attunement, protection, and expressed delight) bypasses that threat reaction more effectively than generic "compassionate being" imagery.

Outcome Mismatch & Missing Decay Trajectories: In a large meta-analysis on attachment security priming, Gillath et al. (2022) found that activating attachment security yields a massive effect specifically on state felt security (d = 1.34), compared to smaller effects on trait insecurity (d = 0.17–0.21) or generic mood (d = 0.47). Yet remote, standalone imagery trials (e.g., Bibbey, 2019; Wright, 2019; Maner et al., 2023) almost exclusively measure diffuse outcomes like general negative affect or game-theory paranoia, where imagery rarely outperforms simple relaxation. None have evaluated single-session acute drops on specific relational threat scripts (e.g., acute rejection sensitivity / abandonment anxiety) and their 24 - 48h decay rates.

Attachment-Specific Nuance:

An interesting element to explore is how the audio recording might be customized differently across attachment styles:

• Anxiously attached individuals tend to hyperactivate distress and crave proximity; for them, the recording acts as an immediate "safe haven" of attunement and expressed delight, rapidly taking the edge off acute abandonment panic.

• Avoidantly attached individuals tend to deactivate and become defensive when asked to be vulnerable; for them, the recording might initially trigger skepticism or discomfort. However, because an Ideal Parent takes 100% of the relational responsibility and explicitly respects boundaries/autonomy, it can provide safety without demanding unprompted self-disclosure.

A High-Leverage Study Design:

[Org] could run a rapid web-based RCT comparing a ~15–20 minute automated audio exercise across three arms:

• Arm 1: IPF visualization (developmental care, attunement, delight)

• Arm 2: Standard Compassion-Focused Imagery ("compassionate other" or "adult me" / wisdom + kindness)

• Arm 3: Active control (guided relaxation / body scan)

Key metrics: Pre/post state fear of rejection, fear of loss of autonomy or boundary voilation, and felt security, a 24- and 48-hour follow-up to measure the half-life of the shift, and moderator profiling (baseline attachment style and trait self-criticism) to identify who super-responds vs. who experiences threat resistance.

If this sounds interesting and you want additional information, the r/idealparentfigures subreddit could be a great place for that in my opinion.

Best regards

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References:

• Baldwin, M. W., Keelan, J. P. R., Fehr, B., Enns, V., & Koh-Rangarajoo, E. (1996). Social-cognitive conceptualization of attachment working models: Availability and accessibility effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 94–109. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.94

• Bibbey, C. (2019). The effect of compassion-focused imagery on paranoia, and trust-based cooperative decision-making in the general population (Doctoral dissertation, University College London).

• Brown, D. P., & Elliott, D. S. (2016). Attachment disturbances in adults: Treatment for comprehensive repair. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Deng, Y., Yan, M., Chen, H., Sun, X., Zhang, P., Zeng, X., Liu, X., & Lye, Y. (2016). Attachment security balances perspectives: Effects of security priming on highly optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1269. 

• Gillath, O., Karantzas, G. C., Romano, D., & Karantzas, K. M. (2022). Attachment security priming: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 26(3), 183–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211054592

• Maner, S., Morris, P. G., & Flewitt, B. I. (2023). A systematic review of the effectiveness of compassion focused imagery in improving psychological outcomes in clinical and non-clinical adult populations. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 30(2), 250–269. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2801

• Petrocchi, N., Ottaviani, C., Cheli, S., Matos, M., Baldi, B., Basran, J. K., & Gilbert, P. (2024). The impact of compassion-focused therapy on positive and negative mental health outcomes: Results of a series of meta-analyses. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 31(2), 230–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/cps0000193

• Wright, J. D. (2019). Individual differences in responsiveness to compassion-focused imagery (Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas).