MMFT AssociatesOlympia, Washington
← About Brian

Writing by Brian C. Kennedy, MA, LMFT

Publications

Clinical writing at the meeting place of attachment, experiential psychotherapy, the nervous system, depth, relationship, and the human movement toward a more fully lived life.

01

2007

Journal of Self Leadership, Volume 3 · 13 pages

Standing at the Edge of the Abyss

Risk Taking, Transcendence and the Art of Letting Go

An exploration of transcendence as movement toward the earth, emotional pain, and vulnerability. Through personal narrative, clinical experience, nervous-system theory, and an Internal Family Systems lens, the article considers the abyss as both a container for exiled experience and a threshold through which risk, surrender, and healing can become possible.

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02

2025

Long-form clinical essay · 35 pages

The Echo Within

The Codependent’s Journey Through Love with Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Traits

A developmental, attachment-based exploration of codependency and the painful bonds that can form with people who carry borderline or narcissistic traits. The essay honors codependent adaptations as intelligent forms of survival while tracing a path toward differentiation, grief, reclaimed identity, and the ability to love without self-erasure.

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03

2015

Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 69(1), 31–33 · DOI 10.1177/1542305015572963 · 3 pages

The Intergenerational Transmission of Core Values in Clinical Supervision

Merle Jordan, Douglas Anderson, Brian Kennedy, and Julia Bagley

Four generations of therapists reflect on how clinical supervision conveys more than theory and technique. Through their linked experiences as supervisors and supervisees, the authors describe how presence, self-awareness, non-pathologizing curiosity, unconditional love, and respect for the whole person are transmitted from one generation of clinicians to the next.

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04

2026

Clinical essay and guided practice · 8 pages

Coming Home to Yourself

Unconditional Presence, the Body, and Healing Emotional Homelessness

An exploration of emotional homelessness—the absence of a secure inner experience of belonging—and the strategies people develop to earn connection or protect themselves from needing it. Drawing from attachment, embodied awareness, and unconditional presence, the essay offers a compassionate path toward grieving what was missing, digesting old pain, developing an internal secure base, and becoming a reliable emotional home for oneself.

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05

2026

Clinical essay · 6 pages

When Intensity Feels Like Love

Trauma Bonding, Romantic Chemistry, and the Nervous System

A careful exploration of the difference between powerful romantic attraction, attachment activation, and a coercive trauma bond. Drawing on attachment theory, affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, Internal Family Systems, and AEDP, the essay examines how familiarity, intermittent reinforcement, and pursuer-withdrawer dynamics can make dysregulation feel like love—and how to recognize connection that supports truth, agency, mutuality, repair, and a more fully alive self.

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06

2026

Interdisciplinary clinical essay · 19 pages

The Inner Critic and the Longing to Belong

An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into Origins, Function, and Healing

An integrative exploration of the inner critic as a protective psychobiological adaptation shaped by attachment injury, shame, and the need to preserve belonging. Drawing on affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, depth psychology, Internal Family Systems, AEDP, and contemplative thought, the essay traces a relational and embodied path from self-attack toward compassion, integration, and a more authentic sense of self.

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