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From Collusion and Collision to Collaboration

How The Therapist’s Own Attachment Patterns Shape Therapy
Attachment research has revolutionized our understanding of human development, the internal world, and the consequences of development gone awry. In his acclaimed book, David Wallin spelled out the implications of this research, integrating attachment with neuroscience, relational psychoanalysis, mindfulness, and a focus on the body to help clinicians become more effective facilitators of growth and healing. Now in a new two-day workshop, he takes this exploration one step further, starting with the premise that—because we are the tools of our trade—no factor influences our effectiveness as therapists more than our own attachment patterns.
      Because such patterns take shape prior to the acquisition of language, the emotional core of the self in therapists and patients alike is always preverbal. Thus the nonverbal subtext of the therapeutic conversation is where the action is. Importantly, what can’t be spoken will tend to be enacted. Enactments in therapy often take the form of collusions and collisions that arise where the attachment patterns of therapist and patient interlock.
      Illustrating his approach with vivid case material and video examples, Wallin shows how the therapist’s mindfulness and reflection can transform problematic enactments into opportunities for insight and change. And because our own attach- ment patterns often undermine our best efforts to create a genuinely therapeutic relationship, he highlights the reality that for the patient to heal, the therapist must also change. Wallin illuminates a way of being a therapist in which we aim to know ourselves as part of the process of trying to know our patients. Working in this way, our professional path can also be a personal journey of discovery that has the potential to deepen and enliven the experience not only of the patient but of the therapist as well.
 

Presenter


David Wallin, PhD
David J. Wallin, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Mill Valley and Albany, CA. A graduate of Harvard who received his doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, he has been practicing, teaching, and writing about psychotherapy for more than three decades. His most recent book, Attachment in Psychotherapy, is presently being translated into eleven languages. He is also coauthor (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 has lectured on attachment and psychotherapy in Europe, Canada, and throughout the United States. For further information, you may visit his website at:www.attachmentinpsychotherapy.com
 

Note From The Presenter

In London this past July I worked with 200 clinicians for two days.  Day One, in the afternoon, was a bit of a trial by fire. In keeping with the fact that who we are inevitably affects what we do as therapists—and apparently as teachers—I found myself unconsciously and problematically enacting, in relation to the audience, aspects of my own attachment patterning.  Then, early on Day Two, we were capable of understanding together this co-created enactment in ways that vividly brought to life the ideas at the heart of the workshop. This was just one feature of a multi-faceted learning experience (not only the usual lecture and Powerpoint, but three self-report measures, some brief structured conversation in small groups, videos of therapists doing their thing, and more) that gave all those present a “felt sense” of the necessity to attend to the impact of who we are as people as we try to be of help to our patients. Illuminating and inspiring (I was told), the experience for the London audience (and for me) was such that I’m going to try to repeat it.  I’m hoping that a two-day workshop will again make possible the kind of learning in depth—conceptual, experiential, “in our bones”—that seems so hard to come by in a single day.  I hope you’ll join me.

 

Attendees Will Learn To:

  • Utilize the attachment relationship as a crucible of therapeutic change. 
  • Identify and “decode” your own attachment patterns rather than be defined or dominated by them. 
  • Detect the collusions and collisions that arise where your attachment patterns intersect with those of the patient. 
  • Strengthen, in yourself and your patients, the mindfulness and reflection (mentalizing) conducive to awareness, flexibility and change. 
  • Identify attachment-based obstacles to dealing effectively with the financial dimension of the therapeutic relationship

 

 

Day One:

8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Registration and check-in
9:00 – 10:30 What Attachment Research Teaches Us About Therapy
How We Co-Create a Secure Base and Safe Haven 
How We Access Nonverbal Experience: The Evoked, Enacted, and Embodied 
How Attachment Patterns in Therapist and Patient Interact  
How We Move from Embeddedness to Mindfulness and Mentalizing
10:30 — 10:45 Break
10:45 – 12:00 Why Focus on the Therapist? Beyond "Countertransference" 
The Therapist’s Attachment History as a Source of Impasse, Insight, and Inspiration 
Trauma, Shame, and the Therapist 
The Therapist's Capacity for Intersubjectivity 
The Multiple Attachment Patterns of the Therapist 
12:00—1:00 p.m. Lunch (on your own)
1:00 – 2:30 What Are the Particulars of Personal History and Patterning That Shape Your Own Conduct as a Therapist?
The Primary Attachment Style Questionnaire (PASQ): 
Assessing Attachment Before Age 12 
First Relationships, Dissociated Experiences, and Their Formative Influence 
2:30—2:45 Break
2:45—4:30 From "Parentified" Child to Wounded Healer: Trauma and the Therapist's Vulnerability to Shame
Shame and the Therapist's "Compulsion to Heal"
Attachment Patterns and Defenses Against Shame 
 

Day Two:

9:00 – 10:30 The Therapist’s Attachment Patterns and Their Implications for Treatment
10:30 — 10:45 Break
10:45 – 12:00 Helpful Therapy, Unhelpful Therapy, and Pseudo-Therapy
Generating a Developmentally Facilitative Attachment Relationship: Four Guidelines 
12:00—1:00 p.m. Lunch (on your own)
1:00 – 2:30 From Collusion and Collision to Collaboration
Enactments That Ensnare Us
Using Enactments Therapeutically
Enactments Around Money: The (False) Dichotomy of Caregiving and Fee-Taking 
2:30—2:45 Break
2:45—4:30 What Is To Be Done?  Mindfulness and Mentalizing in Action: Exploring Interacting Attachment Patterns as They Unfold
Loosening the Grip of Attachment Patterns in Therapist and Patient
Working With the Therapist’s Experience as a Journey of Discovery
Bringing It All Together: The Therapist’s Psychology, Non-Verbal Experience, Mindfulness, Mentalizing, and Change
 

Who Should Attend:

Psychologists, Psychiatrists, MFTs, LCSWs, Counselors
 

Accreditations:

This event is sponsored by R. Cassidy Seminars to provide 12 CE hours. 

Satisfactory Completion  Participants must have paid tuition fee, signed in, attended the entire seminar, completed an evaluation, and signed out in order to receive a certificate. Failure to sign in or out will result in forfeiture of credit for the entire course. No exceptions will be made. Partial credit is not available. 

Psychologists  R. Cassidy Seminars is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.  R Cassidy Seminars maintains responsibility for this program and its content.   12 Continuing Education Credits/Hours. 

Social Workers  R. Cassidy Seminars, ACE Provider #1082 is an approved provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) Program.   Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval.  R. Cassidy Seminars maintains responsibility for this program.  Social Workers will receive 12 continuing education clinical social work clock hours for participating in this course. 

Marriage and Family Therapists and Counselors  R. Cassidy Seminars is an NBCC Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP™) and may offer NBCC approved clock hours for events that meet NBCC requirements.  The ACEP solely is responsible for all aspects of the program.  (NBCC Provider #6375).  12 Continuing Education Credits/Hours.  

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors  R. Cassidy Seminars is an approved provider by NAADAC Provider #000654 for 12 contact hours.  

Disability Access: If you require ADA accommodations please contact our office 30 days or more before the event. We cannot ensure accommodations without adequate prior notification. 

Customer Cancellation Policy: Customer will receive a refund minus the $25 administrative fee when canceling prior to 7 days before the event. No refund will be issued within 7 days of the presentation. 

Please Note: Licensing Boards change regulations often and while we attempt to stay abreast of their most recent changes, if you have questions or concerns about this course meeting your specific board’s approval, we recommend you contact your board directly to obtain a ruling.

 

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