attachment and trauma

Congress
ATTACHMENT
AND TRAUMA
RELATIONSHIPS AND COMPASSION
ROME
SEPTEMBER 23-24-25
2016
Congress
ATTACHMENT
AND TRAUMA
RELATIONSHIPS AND COMPASSION
At this historic moment, Research on Attachment, Trauma and the
human mind/brain functioning seems to be of crucial importance for
billions of people. Every year, hundreds of studies bring to light new
interesting findings and new insights, which slowly reveal new paths
thoward helping people to overcome complex problems related to
trauma and very negative early experiences.
The main goal of the Congress on Attachment and Trauma, whose
past editions have been attended by more than 2,000 participants
from over 40 countries, is to gather the best Experts in the fields of
Attachment, Trauma, Neurophysiology, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, to deeply understand the subtle links between experience, genetic predisposition, relationships and compassion, so as to generate
in the clinical practice the necessary conditions for those who suffer,
to overcome their difficulties. In this Congress,
participants will have 30 minutes time for
asking questions to each speaker,
as well as 60 minutes during the
round-table discussions. The
Congress on Attachment and
Trauma is an opportunity not
to be missed to get to know
in person those Experts
who are transforming
the landscape of Psychotherapy and Mental
Health, and their huge
knowledge on these
key topics.
PROGRAM
ALLAN SCHORE United States
Author of numerous articles and books on theory of
emotional regulation, he works on the faculty of the
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.
THE RIGHT BRAIN IS DOMINANT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
I’ll be using the perspective of regulation theory in order to interpret a significant body
of neuroimaging research on love in infancy and adulthood in order to more deeply
understand the right brain attachment origins and underlying psychoneurobiological
mechanisms of the capacity to form and maintain a strong emotional bond of mutual
love.
After an introduction and background, I will discuss recent developmental neuroimaging and conceptualizations of mother’s love, a model of the initial emergence of
mutual love at 23 months, and then current adult neuroimaging
and conceptualizations of adult love. In the final section I will integrate research and
clinical data to model the neuroanatomy, neuropsychology, and neuropsychoanalysis of this essential marker of what it means to be human.
VITTORIO GALLESE Italy
Professor at the Faculty of Medicine University of Parma, is
the author numerous articles on mirror neurons and
neurophysiology.
EMOTIONS IN ACTION. EMOTION REGULATION AND RECOGNITION IN TRAUMATIZED AND NEGLECTED YOUNG INDIVIDUALS..
According to a widely shared perspective, experiencing and expressing a given
emotion are two different and independent processes. I’ll proposean alternative
perspective: the behaviour connected to a specific emotion is part of the emotion
itself. In my talk I will present and discuss recent neuroscientific studies showing
the link between emotion experience and expression. I will also present recent
empirical research on the impact of trauma and neglect on emotion regulation
and recognition in children and young adolescents.
References
Umiltà M.A., Wood R., Loffredo F., Ravera R., Gallese V. (2013) Impact of civil war on emotionrecognition: the denial of sadness in Sierra Leone. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 00523, doi: 10.3389/
fpsyg.2013.00523.
Ardizzi M., Martini F., Umiltà M.A., Ravera R. and Gallese V. (2013) WhenEarlyExperiencesBuild
a Wall to Others’ Emotions: An Electrophysiological and AutonomicStudy. PLoS ONE, published
online 10 April 2013, doi: 0.1371/journal.pone.0061004.
Ardizzi M, Sestito M, Martini F, Umiltà MA, Ravera R, Gallese V. (2014) When Age Matters: Differences in Facial Mimicry and AutonomicResponses to Peers’ Emotions in Teenagers and Adults.
PLoS ONE 9(10): e110763. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110763.
STEPHEN PORGES United States
Is Distinguished University Scientist in the Kinsey Institute at
Indiana University and is Professor of Psychiatry at the University
of North Carolina. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the
University of Illinois at Chicago and at the University of Maryland.
In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory.
CONNECTEDNESS AS BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE: UNDERSTANDING THE CONSEQUENCES OF TRAUMA, ABUSE, AND CHRONIC STRESS THROUGH THE LENS OF THE
POLYVAGAL THEORY.
Polyvagal Theory expands our understanding of normal and atypical behavior,
mental health, and psychiatric disorders. Polyvagal Theory, by incorporating a
developmental perspective, explains how maturation of the autonomic nervous
system forms the neural “platform” upon which social behavior and the development of trusting relationships are based. The theory explains how reactions
to danger and life threat and experiences of abuse and trauma may retune our
nervous system to respond to friends, caregivers, and teachers as if they were
predators. The theory may help practitioners distinguish the contextual features
that trigger defense from those that are calming and support spontaneous social
engagement.
RACHEL YEHUDA United States
Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Director,
Traumatic Stress Studies Division Icahn School of Medicine
at Mount Sinai Director, Mental Health Patient Care Center
James J. Peters VA Medical Center.
CAN THE EFFECT OF TRAUMA BE TRANSMITTED INTERGENERATIONALLY?
Recent advances in molecular biology, genomics, and epigenomics, has now
provided paradigms for understanding long term effects of stress. This presentation will focus on intergenerational transmission of trauma as a particularly enduring effect of stress. Most of the research has been conducted on adult children
of Holocaust survivors, but has now generalized to include children of other trauma survivors such as children born to pregnant women who survived the world
trade center attack on 9/11. The research has evolved into one that explains
the contribution of early environmental experiences-including parenting-on highly
conserved molecular and genomic processes. These changes
in and of themselves do not signify pathology, but provide a paradigm for understanding long term effects of profoundly important events. The work has already
led to a better understanding of biological risk factors for PTSD, and predictors
of outcome in response to trauma.
DIANA FOSHA United States
Is the developer of A E D P (Accelerated ExperientialDynamicPsychotherapy), and founder and current director
of the AEDP Institute, an internationally recognized school
that specializes in training therapists in a healing-oriented
transformational approach to the treatment of attachment
trauma.
THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF HEALING: A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDOING ALONENESS
AND DOING TRANSFORMATIONAL WORK IN AEDP
Four foundational aspects of AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) allow it to reliably do transformational work and transform suffering into
flourishing:
(I) Its healing orientation, and its belief, supported by neurobiology and recent
advances in neuroplasticity, that we are all self-righting organisms wired with an
innate motivational tendency, towards health, healing and growth, which in the
right environments, can be potentiated into clinical action; (II) Undoing the aloneness that people feel in the face of overwhelming emotional experiences through
an attachment-based stance and dyadic affect regulatory techniques; (III) Mobilizing subcortical affective systems specialized to adapt to environmental changes by rapidly transforming behavior through its experiential interventions and
transformational work with intense emotions; and (IV) Metatherapeutic processing techniques, where, by experientially working with theexperience of transformation, and the positive emotions invariably associated with moments of change
for the better, non-finite upward spirals of positive emotions are systematically
activated. The positive emotions that fuel the self with energy and vitality, are the
vehicles of neuroplasticity that, in effect, re-wire the brain. AEDP emphasizes the co-creation of safety: with accompaniment, patients can
risk revisiting past trauma and suffering. Healing and neuroplasticity are set
in motion through fully experiencing previously feared emotions in a secure relationship, and through gentle, yet focused, explicit attention to the experience of
healing within the patient-therapist relationship. Processing both traumatic and
restorative emotional experiences to completion, the AEDP process culminates
in vitality, energy, and the non-finite positive emotion-fueled spirals of resilience,
well-being and creativity that are so highly correlated with health.
Clinical videotapes of AEDP in action will be used to illuminate how emotional
suffering can be not only ameliorated, but systematically and reliably transformed
into resilience, flourishing, and well being.
15/12/2015
Paul G. edited photo.jpg
PAUL GILBERT United Kingdom
Paul Gilbert, FBPsS, PhD, OBE is Professor of Clinical
Psychology at the University of Derby and Consultant
Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care
Foundation Trust.
COMPASSION FOCUSED THERAPY AND THE FEARS BLOCKS AND RESISTANCES TO
COMPASSION
This talk will give a brief outline of the nature of compassion and how compassion
is used in therapeutic interventions and personal change. However, early in the
development of compassion focused therapy it became clear that many people
were very resistant to both the idea and the feelings of compassion. This talk
will outline some of the research on the fears of compassion along with ways in
which the therapists can work with those difficulties. CFT uses exposurebased
interventions and therefore facilitating people to increase their capacities to experience and tolerate affiliative emotion is central.
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References:
Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Catarino, F & Baião, R. (2014). Fears of compassion in a depressed
population: Implications for psychotherapy. Journal of Depression and Anxiety http://dx.doi.
org/ 10.4172/2167-1044.S2-003
Gilbert, P., McEwan,K., Catarino, F & Baião, R. (2014). Fears of negative emotions in relation to
fears of happiness, compassion, alexithymia and psychopathology in a depressed population:
A preliminary study. Journal of Depression and Anxiety http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2167-1044.
S2-004
Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Gibbons, L., Chotai, S., Duarte, J. & Matos, M. (2013). Fears of compassion and happiness in relation to alexithymia, mindfulness and self-criticism. Psychology and
Psychotherapy. 84, 239–255 DOI:10.1348/147608310X526511.
Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Matos, M & Rivis, A. (2011). Fears of compassion: Development of three self-report measures. Psychology and Psychotherapy, 84, 239-255. DOI:
10.1348/147608310X526511
JON KABAT ZINN United States
PhD, is founding Executive Director of the Center for
Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the
founding director of its renowned Stress Reduction Clinic
and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School.
THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON OF MINDFULNESS BECOMING MAINSTREAM: ITS
MEANING, ITS PROMISE, AND ITS PERILSI.
In this exploration in dialogue with Alessandro Carmelita, Jon Kabat-Zinn will
discuss with Alessandro Carmelita the widespread and rapidly growing interest in
mindfulness and in its actual cultivation through practice in countries around the
world, and examine how these profound cultural changes came about, and what
it might mean for the participants in this International Conference. He will highlight
the dharma roots of MBSR and other mindfulness-based interventions in the
Chan/Zen and Theravada traditions in particular, and the emergence and gradual
flowering of mindfulness in these and other forms within medicine, health care,
and psychology over the past four decades (and now into education, the corporate world, government, criminal justice, the law, professional sports, even the
military). He will stress the broad potential impact of training in mindfulness as a
public health initiative in the service of cultivating greater health and well-being,
clarity and wisdom, and altruism and kindness both individually, in society, and ultimately, globally. This conversation will emphasize the ethical roots of mindfulness
within the dharma traditions of origin, and equally within medicine, and discuss
the potential perils of mindfulness becoming overly popular and commercialized,
divorced from deep practice and from its ethical moorings, and perhaps reduced
to a mere (and misunderstood) concept, rather than understood as a life-long
invitation to recognize and embody what is deepest and best in humanity
collectively and within ourselves as individuals.
KATHY STEELE United States
Member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and
Dissociation, received numerous awards for his research work.
Co-author of the book “Haunted Self.”
A SICKNESS OF THE SOUL:UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING CHRONIC SHAME.
Chronic shame often underlies impasse, resistance, and relational disconnection
in psychotherapy. It is a major factor in ongoing appeasing behaviors, revictimization, rage, selfharm, substance abuse, isolation, and dissociation, among many
others. Childhood abuse and neglect are risk factors for chronic shame, and it
is a strong mediator between child abuse and adult psychopathology, including
dissociation. By its very nature, shame is hidden from others, including the therapist, much of the time. Shame is reexperienced in the same way as traumatic
memories, with symptoms of intrusion, avoidance and arousal, and thus must be
approached carefully within a window of tolerance of the patient. Shame is often
avoided in treatment by therapist and patient alike, and both attempt to eradicate
it as quickly as possible when it is acknowledged. However, the therapeutic approach to all other emotions is first to accept them with compassion and understanding, not to eliminate them. So it should be with shame as well. Therapists
often feel they do not have sufficient skills to address shame effectively, as it is so
powerful, embedded, alienating and disconnecting. Talking about shame is often ineffective because its physiology involves a temporary loss of cognitive and
verbal capacities. We will explore the several functions of shame, and the inner
shame dynamics in internal working models and dissociative parts of self. An
integration of topdown and bottomup interventions will be discussed that can
transform chronic shame into relational connection, and selfcompassion and
competence, as well as ways to help patients (and therapists) develop resilience
to shame reactions. Most importantly, we will examine how to be with shame our
own and our patients – with curiosity and compassion, finding ways to deeply
attune with and repair shame in a relational space.
PAT OGDEN United States
She founded the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and
The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.
THE CHALLENGING CLIENT: CULTIVATING THE BODY AS RESOURCE THROUGH THE
LENS OF SENSORIMOTOR PSYCHOTHERAPY.
Posture and movement are direct access routes to our clients’ potential and to
what holds them back from achieving it. But therapists are often concerned that
their clients are too destabilized, dissociative, body phobic, low functioning, or otherwise challenged to benefit from body psychotherapy. However, these clients may
be exactly the ones who stand to gain the most from a somatic approach. A primary advantage of working somatically lies in the fact that the client’s movement and
posture can be directly and objectively observed and addressed in clinical practice.
But socalled “difficult” or “impossible” clients may find somatic interventions triggering, anxiety provoking, shameful, unappealing, or a waste of time. Some clients
may be apprehensive that they will be asked move in a way that would make
them feel uncomfortable, awkward, or “silly.” Therapists themselves might feel ill
at ease asking clients to be aware of their bodies, change their posture, or explore
movement. Often neither clients nor therapists understand the original wisdom
of outdated physical action tendencies or how to change them to respond more
adaptively to current circumstances. This keynote will focus on the challenges,
risks and rewards of integrating the body into clinical practice with “resistant” and
otherwise “difficult” clients, including those with dissociative disorders, addictions,
repeated hospitalizations, and those who are skeptical of body psychotherapy.
The foundational spiritual and philosophical principles that underlie Sensorimotor
Psychotherapy will be emphasized. Beyond technique, these principles define the
quality of the therapeutic relationship to create a compassionate atmosphere conducive to exploring the body as a resource for psychological healing.
DANIEL SIEGEL United States
Is currently clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School
of Medicine where he is on the faculty of the Center for Culture,
Brain, and Development and the Co-Director of the Mindful
Awareness Research Center.
THE EMBODIED AND RELATIONAL MIND IN PSYCHOTHERAPY: A VIEW FROM THE
FIELD OF INTERPERSONAL NEUROBIOLOGY.
Why does the field of mental health have virtually no definition of the mental or
of the health? Even in academic fields beyond the clinical professions, including
medicine and psychotherapy, there is no definition of the term, “mind” offered
from neuroscience to anthropology. In this presentation, this odd finding will be
discussed and the benefits of exploring what the mind is, what a healthy mind
might be, and how therapists can cultivate a healthy mind based on scientific
findings will be explore in detail.
References
Mind: A journey to the heart of being human. DJ Siegel (2016), New York: WW Norton.
The Developing Mind, Second Edition. DJ Siegel (2012). New York: Guilford Press.
Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An integrative handbook of the mind. DJ Siegel
(2012). New York: WW Norton.
Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. DJ Siegel (2010). New York: Bantam
Random House.
TIMETABLE
Friday, SEPTEMBER 23rd
8.00-9.30 Registration
9.30-11.00 Allan Schore: “The development of the right brain across the
life span: What’s love got to do with it”
11.00-11.30 COFFEE BREAK
11.30-13.00 Vittorio Gallese: “Emotions in action. Emotion regulation
and recognition in traumatized and neglected young individuals”
13.00-14.30 LUNCH BREAK
15.00-16.30 Stephen Porges: “Connectedness as a Biological Imperative: Understanding the consequences of trauma, abuse, and
chronic stress through the lens of the Polyvagal Theory”
16.00-16.30 COFFEE BREAK
16.30-18.30 ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION. Allan Schore, Vittorio Gallese,
Stephen Porges: “Love, Relationships and the Brain: trauma
and its consequences”
.
Saturday, SEPTEMBER 24th
8.30-9.30 Rachel Yehuda: “Can the effect of trauma be transmitted intergenerationally?”
9.30-11.00 Diana Fosha: “The Neurobiology of Healing: A Framework
for Undoing Aloneness and Doing Transformational Work in
AEDP”
11.00-11.30 COFFEE BREAK
11.30-13.00 Paul Gilbert: “Compassion focused therapy and the fears
blocks and resistances to compassion”
13.30-15.00 LUNCH BREAK
14.30-16.00 Jon Kabat Zinn: “The Global Phenomenon of Mindfulness Becoming Mainstream: Its Meaning, Its Promise, and Its Perils”
16.00-16.30 COFFEE BREAK
16.00-18.30 ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION. Rachel Yehuda, Diana Fosha,
Paul Gilbert: “Transgenerational trauma, Mindfulness, Compassion, and overcoming Trauma”
Sunday, SEPTEMBER 25th
9.30-11.00 Kathy Steele: “A Sickness of the Soul: Understanding and
Treating Chronic Shame”
11.00-11.30 COFFEE BREAK
11.30-13.00 Pat Ogden: “The Challenging Client: Cultivating the Body as
Resource through the Lens of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy”
13.00-14.30 LUNCH BREAK
14.30-16.00 Daniel Siegel: “The Embodied and Relational Mind in Psychotherapy: A view from the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology”
16.00-16.30 COFFEE BREAK
16.30-18.30 ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION. Daniel Siegel, Pat Ogden, Kathy
Steele: “Trauma, Emotion, Body, Relationships and Compassion”
LANGUAGE English
LOCATION Teatro Brancaccio, Via Merulana, 244 - 00185 Rome
FEE
• 420 euro
• 250 euro for university students
DISCOUNT
• 320 euro if pay within 15 of April
• 320 euro for who attented the Congress Attachment and Trauma of 2014 or 2015
REGISTRATION
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INFO
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www.italy-congress.com