The Friend Frustrated Client: An Attachment-Informed Intervention for Adult Friendship Concerns 

Learning Objectives

1. Learners will identify how attachment theory extends beyond romantic relationships to platonic bonds, and the core components of a Secure Base of Friendship. Learners will apply the Seven-Step Secure Friendship Arc to a client experiencing friendship friction who is on the precipice of a failed friendship but has the option to save it.
2. Learners will differentiate between healthy relational maintenance behaviors and protective behaviors that lead to friendship conflict and loss. Learners will apply a structured questionnaire on “productive conflict” vs “Harmful tension” to a case vignette involving a client deciding how to address a friend they have friction with.
3. Learners will identify how friendship expression and expectations vary across culture, neurotype, and other individual differences. Learners will apply this cultural sensitivity when assessing a client's friendship patterns and tailoring use of the Secure Friendship Arc.
4. Learners will recognize friendship grief as a legitimate clinical presentation requiring dedicated intervention. Learners will apply a grief-processing framework adapted from the Dual Process Model of Grief to a case vignette involving a client navigating the end of a significant friendship.