Using interventions drawn from a number of therapeutic approaches (including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and Ego State Therapy), we explore the effects of traumatic attachment from a psychobiological perspective, considering how this opens up new ways of working with its relational legacy. We consider neuroscience research findings on the affects of both attachment and traumatic experiences on the brain and body, so that our moment-to-moment therapeutic experience reflects an understanding of not only the client’s verbalisations, but also the language of the brain and the body. Specifically, we learn how to focus on the sequence of emotional, bodily and cognitive responses to the trauma narrative.
This workshop combines lecture, video, and experiential exercises to explore a neurobiologically-informed understanding of the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour, somatic interventions for challenging trauma-related relational patterns, and how we can use ourselves as “neurobiological regulators” of the client’s dysregulated emotional and autonomic states.
Learning Objectives:
- To describe the effects of trauma-related attachment on affect regulation
- To identify the effects of disorganized attachment on interpersonal relationships
- To utilize Sensorimotor Psychotherapy interventions to address attachment and trauma-related issues in psychotherapy
- To employ interactive neurobiological regulation to help clients tolerate psychotherapy and be more effective collaborators
About the speaker
Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice; Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute; Clinical Director, Khiron Clinics UK; an EMDRIA Approved Consultant; and a former instructor at Harvard Medical School. An international writer and lecturer on cutting-edge treatment approaches to trauma and dissociation, she is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors (2017).