Insecure Attachment Bites: How Early Relationship Wounding Transmits the Vampire Archetype

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the vampire archetype and how it may present, be similar to, and contribute to an insecure attachment style. The aim of the study was to describe and understand the archetype of the vampire and examine how therapists’ exploration of this archetype with patients could provide, for both therapist and patient, a way to reflect and access a more conscious and deeper understanding of unconscious and maladaptive relational dynamics. The lens of attachment theory was used to guide and inform the study as well as to examine the data. This research encompassed a phenomenological approach using data derived from the results of semistructured interviews with participants who are psychotherapists and can identify and describe patients they have or have had as insecurely attached. One of the most common responses or themes reported by the participants was a sense of being drained. There were concerns for their own well-being, their long-term health, and how long they could tolerate being in this draining presence in both the short term and long term. The participants, or a therapist in general, could use these archetypal traits to help explain their experience and inform their direction of therapeutic skills and orientation. The research serves as an attempt to help the clinician, psychologist, or psychotherapist within the field of depth psychology to better understand the phenomenon of the vampire archetype and how to use this awareness as a therapeutic tool.