101688: Broken Bonds

About the Course:

Webinar from the 2009 International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals Symposium.
Note: For this course there is a small additional fee to obtain the webinar. Please see the “Get Course Materials” link in the right sidebar for details.

In the context of trauma, attachment failure is inevitable. Since early attachment is a body experience, an altered relationship to the body develops: it becomes an enemy, not an ally. Traumatic attachments ‘wire’ the nervous system to over-respond, increasing vulnerability to emotional overwhelm, and compulsive efforts to regulate affect behaviorally. Instead of experiencing relationships as havens of safety, traumatized clients will be driven by powerful wishes and fears of relationship. Is it any wonder that eating disorders develop in this context? This presentation will address how to work with these challenges using techniques that speak to both mind and body.

Content Outline:
Using approaches drawn from the spheres of psychodynamic psychotherapy, from research on attachment behavior, addictions and eating disorders treatment, and somatic approaches to the treatment of trauma, this presentation will use a combination of lecture, demonstration, video, and experiential exercises to explore:
· A neurobiologically informed approach to understanding the impact of trauma on attachment behavior
· How attachment failure affects not only adult attachment behavior but also subsequent capacities to regulate affect and autonomic arousal
· The relationship between affect dysregulation and addictive or self-destructive behavior, including eating disorders
· Interventions that address the effects of attachment failure on mind and body and offer clients new options for regulating their emotions
· How the therapist can address the challenges posed by these clients by becoming a “neurobiological regulator” for clients suffering the effects of attachment-related dysregulation.

Author

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. (presenter)

About the Author:

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Instructor at the Trauma Center, a clinic and research center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Dr. Fisher is also past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Consultant, a faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School. Author of numerous publications on mind-body treatments for trauma, she lectures nationally and internationally on the application of neurobiological and attachment research to therapies for trauma and addictive disorders. For more information about Dr. Fisher, go to www.janinafisher.com.

Recommended For:

This course is recommended for health care professionals, especially psychologists, therapists, and counselors who seek to update their research knowledge and competency in treating patients with eating disorders, increase and acquire new skills, learn new intervention strategies, and obtain continuing education credits. It is appropriate for professionals at all levels of knowledge.

Course Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe the relationship between trauma, attachment failure, and eating disorders.

2. Participants will be able to identify somatic interventions to address attachment issues in psychotherapy.

3. Participants will be able to identify the effects of attachment failure on mind and body.