Stopping Trauma Takeover: Applications of Attachment Strategies
Presented by: Hannah Smith MA, LMHC, CGP (she/her)
When: Thursday, May 15, 2025 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm Pacific Time
Where: Live in person at the Shoreline Center (18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA 98155)
Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs | Cost: $190.00
It is well-known in mental health research that there are four distinct attachment strategies. This understanding of human development is quite possibly one of the greatest findings so far in human psychology. As we now know, attachment wounds underlie just about every mental health illness there is.
The four strategies are subdivided clinically into organized and disorganized. With the use of the robust, evidence-based, and conciliatory framework of Interpersonal Neurobiology, this course redefines, clarifies, and simplifies the understanding and treatment of trauma & trauma disorders, such as PTSD, and the most daunting results of disorganized attachment, namely personality disorders.
Society has not been kind to those who carry these diagnostic labels. Many of those who struggle with these DSM-defined disorders are misdiagnosed, receive little if not no substantive treatment, endure multiple dysfunctional (and trauma-reinforcing) relationships, and may be entirely shunned by the medical world. This only exacerbates an already volatile situation.
Let’s be honest, though. All too often, the acting-out tendencies and the resistance demonstrated by these folks toward treatment can be both confounding and draining to those who attempt to provide treatment. In the post-pandemic world, where everything is in short supply, practitioners need to rethink the way we identify, conceptualize, and treat these hurting people – for their sake and ours! It is time to see this for what it is and do away with the highly stigmatized pathological view.
Clinicians need a way to feel competent and confident in our approach to these clients and a method by which we may gain their buy-in and increase their flexibility, adaptability, and insight.
Yes. Increase insight. It is possible.
Join us for this paradigm-shifting session and walk away with renewed vigor and a new and more coherent approach to your work with these inspiring, creative, and amazing individuals.
OBJECTIVES:
- Differentiate Organized and Disorganized Attachment Strategies Along with Their Typical Origins and Presentations
- Connect Attachment to Developmental Trauma & PTSD to clarify, simplify, and demystify these clinical presentations and increase client buy-in
- Redefine Personality Disorders in Non-pathologizing Terms to Lay the Groundwork for New Treatment Paradigms and Approaches
- Incorporate Integrative Somatic and Cognitive Treatment Concepts, Such as Window of Tolerance, Mindfulness, Wheel of Awareness, and Divided Attention to Promote Lasting, Positive Outcomes
- List and Describe Cogent and Coherent Steps and Structure to Guide Treatment and Reduce Provider Stress and Burnout
- Apply New Learning to Case Studies and Real-time, In-class Experiential Activities