Symposion, Attachment Perspectives on Borderline Personality Disorder: Implications for Therapy

A one-day workshop with Dr. Gwen Adshead

When: 23 September, 2017

Where: The Metropole Hotel, MacCurtain Street, Cork

Cost: €90.00. Tea and coffee included.

CPD Hours: 5.5

Attachment theory provides useful perspectives on emotionally unstable or borderline personality disorder (BPD); both in terms of how the disorder develops and in terms of therapy. Both clients and therapists may struggle with trust, high levels of negative affect, and therapeutic ruptures. Attachment needs in such clients are highly aroused and often extremely difficult to assuage. Understandably, BPD clients can not only struggle to participate in the therapeutic alliance, but can also view therapists as aloof, uncaring, antagonistic or unsympathetic.

At this practical and interactive workshop that would be relevant for psychotherapists, clinical psychologists, counsellors and psychiatrists, Dr Gwen Adshead will use a perspective based on attachment theory and the tenets of mentalisation to explore:

  • How the psychopathology of emotional instability develops
  • Hostile, helpless states of mind and epistemic trust
  • The relationship with disorganised attachment and its sequelae
  • How this understanding informs our therapeutic approaches
  • How this understanding influences the way we think about families and their therapeutic needs
  • Language and threat: use of ‘why‘ questions, silence and poor mentalising
  • Preventing and managing attachment anxiety

Gwen will not only present material based on published evidence; but also, use group discussion and ‘live supervision’ of cases brought by participants as part of the workshop. Participants are welcome to bring vignettes of clinical material that can be shared and discussed within the normal boundaries of confidentiality.

About the speaker

Dr Gwen Adshead MBBS, MA, FRCPsych MSt is a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist. She is trained as a group analyst and in mindfulness based cognitive therapy. She has worked in the NHS with a wide variety of clinical problems: including violence perpetrators, trauma survivors and mothers who struggle to care for their children. She has worked …read more

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