Frightening Attachment Figures
The Development of the Self Under Threat
NOW CLOSED
Friday 22 July 2022
A live webinar or in-person event with Orit Badouk Epstein
CPD Credits: 3.5 hours
- Attend live webinar OR in person at Confer’s premises (Please see our FAQ)
- This event will not be recorded
- Bookings close at 9am BST Tuesday 19 July
When faced with a client who arrives to a session feeling depressed, confrontational, or suicidal, the therapist can have a deep sense of helplessness that mirrors something of their state of mind of being defeated and hopeless.
READ MORE...The tasks of living, that may seem ordinary to the untraumatized and secure person, can be fraught with difficulty for someone who lacked a safe development journey in childhood because their parents were frightening or dangerous. They often suffer from complex trauma.
Main and Solomon (1986) first identified fear and the feared object as an important factor as an obstruction to the child’s attachment needs. Working these research findings into what they later called Disorganised Attachment, has given us the framework to see how dominant is the role of fear in clients with complex trauma facing profound difficulties in managing critical areas in their relationships and everyday life.
Some of these individuals were deemed as not being suitable for therapy. Using these insights in the therapeutic relationship requires clinical skill, and the purpose of this workshop is to further professional understanding of the ongoing impact of the client’s attachment trauma as it is displayed in their adaptation to survival. In deepening the understanding of the nature of attachment dynamics invoked in the client – and indeed the therapist – participants will gain understanding of the disorganised attachment state of mind, trauma and dissociative processes. Orit will demonstrate relational ways to facilitate the challenges of working with clients with complex trauma and the move towards synthesis of traumatised self-states, interpersonal relatedness, and a growing sense of earned security.
FULL PROGRAMME
13.30 BST
Registration and Refreshments (attending in person only)
14.00
Introductions
14.10
Developmental Trauma: An overview on what constitutes secure and insecure attachment
In this presentation we will see how the formation of our attachment bonds with a primary caregiver leads to the organisation of a coherent and organised self-state, while a frightening and unpredictable environment results in the disorganisation of the self and a collapse of adaptive strategies.
14.40
Q&A
15.00
Break
15.20
Complex Trauma and dissociation
The combination of childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and intergenerational transmission of trauma, often results in dissociation and the fragmentation of the self. We will consider how finding empathic words and metaphors that describe self-states can contribute to the client’s reorganisation of self.
15.50
Q&A
16.10
Break
16.30
Case Presentation
Bringing together the three strands of , trauma, disorganised attachment and dissociation in a case study of a client who suffered extensive abuse we will see how that led to the colonisation of her body and mind and the fragmentation of the self. Her attachment to her “scaregivers” (Badouk Epstein, 2015) and her attachment cries meant that she suffered regular suicidal ideation, eating disorders and other forms of self-harm. This was complicated by a constant wish to return to the scene of the abuse. The relational journey embarked upon involved the therapist sitting with the dissociated unknown, facilitating a polyphonic dialogue between her dissociated parts. Gradually this enabled the client to establish relational safety, improve functioning and self-regulation, and reduce her suicidal ideation all leading to develop the coherence needed for the emancipation of her imprisoned body and mind.
17.35
Q&A
18.00
End / Drinks Reception (in person only)