ATTACHMENT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY:

Integrating attachment with neuroscience,

realtional psychoanalysis, mindfulness

and a focus on the body

Sparked by Bowlby's original insights, attachment research has revolutionized our understanding of human development, the internal world, and the consequences of development gone awry. No other empirically-based theory can tell us more about how we become who we are—and how to change who we have become. Until recently, therapists were largely left to draw their own inferences about the practical application of this growing body of knowledge.

DAY ONE - RELATIONAL TRANSFORMATION, NONVERBAL EXPERIENCE AND THE MINDFUL SELF

In this clinically-focused training, David Wallin translates the findings of attachment theory research into an innovative framework that grounds adult psychotherapy in the facts of childhood development. Advancing a model of treatment as transformation through relationship, he integrates attachment with neuroscience, trauma studies, relational psychoanalysis, and the practice of mindfulness to help clinicians become more effective facilitators of growth and healing. Bringing this groundbreaking synthesis to life with vivid case material, he shows how tailoring interventions to fit the attachment needs of patients can help them generate the internalized secure base for which their early relationships provided no foundation. He demonstrates how therapists can access the nonverbal experience that attachment, neuroscience, and trauma researchers all identify as the affective core of the self. Describing powerful techniques for working with patients' emotional responses and bodily experiences, he explores how therapists can use their own subjective experience, awareness of enactments, and attention to the body to help bring patients' inarticulate and dissociated experiences to light.

While Bowlby stressed the formidable influence of the realities of early attachment experience in shaping the self, subsequent research has shown that the relationship of the self to experience past and present can be even more influential—and that changing one's stance toward experience can transform it. In light of this finding—that takes us from Bowlby to Buddha—Wallin demonstrates how, as therapists, we can cultivate a more reflective and mindful stance toward experience, in both our patients and ourselves. At the core of the attachment-focused approach Wallin describes, is the understanding that our personal involvement, emotional responsiveness, and unavoidable subjectivity are essential features of every successful therapy—and that the relationship we create together with our patients is, in itself, the mainspring of therapeutic change.

DAY TWO - ATTACHMENT AND THE THERAPIST: HOW OUR OWN ATTACHMENT PATTERNS SHAPE THERAPY

The second day of the training explores attachment one step further, starting with the fact that in childhood and psychotherapy, the relationship is where the developmental action is—and development takes two. Attachment research shows that the parent’s security, insecurity or trauma is unavoidably transmitted to the child. Clinical experience suggests the same is true of the therapist in relation to the patient. Because we are the tools of our trade, no factor influences our effectiveness as therapists more than our own attachment patterns. Rather than our theories or techniques, it is who we are—and who we can become—that ultimately determines our capacity to create with our patients a genuinely therapeutic relationship.

Illustrating his approach with vivid case material and video examples, Wallin explores how the therapist’s mindfulness and reflection can transform impasses generated by attachment history into opportunities for insight and inspiration. Using attachment research to clarify the impact of the therapist’s attachment patterns as these interlock with those of the patient, he highlights the reality that for the patient to heal, the therapist must also change. Of paramount importance here is a focus on the nonverbal realm of experience that is evoked, enacted, and/or embodied. This focus opens a ‘royal road’ to the awareness and integration of previously dissociated experience, not only in the patient but in the therapist as well.

ENDORSED FOR 14 APS CLINICAL AND COUNSELLING HOURS

Members from other professional associations will be provided with Certificates detailing 14 hours of professional development.

DAVID J. WALLIN Ph. D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Mill Valley and Albany, California, USA.
A graduate of Harvard, he received his doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, and has been practicing, teaching and writing about psychotherapy for nearly three decades. His book, Attachment in Psychotherapy, is being translated into seven languages. He is also co-author (with Stephen Goldbart) of Mapping the Terrain of the Heart: Passion, Tenderness and The Capacity to Love.

Dr. Wallin is a lively and engaging speaker who combines a scholarly perspective with unusual candor about his own experience as a therapist. He lectures on attachment and psychotherapy in Europe, Canada and the USA.

TRAINING AND REGISTRATION BROCHURE
Click here to download a registration brochure

FOR SECURE ONLINE REGISTRATION
Click here to register online or phone 03 9855 2220

DATES AND LOCATIONS

PERTH

Friday 19th & Saturday 20th NOVEMBER 2010
Wardle Room, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
For Venue Info and Map click here

'ATTACHMENT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY' by DAVID WALLIN Ph.D.

click on the bookcover for more information or to order online

Phillip R. Shaver, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
Co-editor, Handbook of Attachment.

"An important advance in the examination of the implications of attachment theory for psychotherapy. Wallin provides a rich conceptual scaffolding for understanding the role that the therapeutic relationship plays in the change process. He also provides an intriguing perspective on the potential contributions of mindfulness practice to the cultivation of a therapeutic stance. Theoretically sophisticated and clinically enlightening."

Jeremy D. Safran, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research, co- author, Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance, Editor of Psychoanalysis and Buddhism.

"Simply the best integration of key advances in attachment theory and research and their application to psychotherapy. Complex concepts are carefully elucidated and brilliantly illustrated with clinical examples... A vital resource for understanding how attachment processes may be applied in a clinical context."

Peter Fonagy, Ph.D, FBA Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London, Director, Child and Family Center, The Menninger Clinic, Topeka, KS.

"A clinically relevant, and particularly pragmatic application of recent science to a variety of clinical problems."

Allan N. Schore, Ph.D., author of Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self.

"Wallin offers a brilliant leap in realizing the clinical promise of attachment theory..."

Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of 'Emotional Intelligence'.

"John Bowlby would have been delighted with this book, which links the biological imperatives of attachment to the dialogues that define the self and the nature of key relationships. He would also have been delighted to see his theory articulated as a guide to psychotherapy in such an eminently readable manner. The use of attachment as this kind of guide is a rich vein that has just begun to be tapped."

Susan M. Johnson, Ed.D, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, author of 'The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection', Co-Editor of 'Attachment Processes in Couple and Family Therapy'.

"A remarkable achievement-a clear synthesis of the latest developments in attachment theory, intersubjectivity, social neuroscience and mindfulness. Wallin layers these 'maps' onto the therapy experience, and then takes the reader through the territory to emerge with a new vision of therapy. David Wallin is a trustworthy guide through the complexities of clinical work where the therapy relationship itself is the intervention."

Christopher Germer, Ph.D. Clinical Instructor, Harvard Medical School, Co-editor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.