Disconnected and Unreachable

Our speakers both have extensive experience of working with children, adolescents and adults who are deeply shut-down, and they will share reflections on the challenge of engaging them in the therapeutic process. Drawing on the psychoanalytic work of Freida Fromm-Reichman and Harry Stack Sullivan, and linking to current critical thinking in the developmental sciences, including Stephen Porges’ vagal theories, they will offer new understandings of the subtle differences in the ways of being unreachable. New concepts will be introduced, such as being not so much withdrawn as undrawn, and the differences between being shut-down due to neglect, and dissociated due to trauma will be discussed.

The early roots of unreachable states, including neurobiological and attachment problems, lead to a theory of deep disembodiment. Here, lack of connection to appetitive body-states is central to this disengaged way of being: the seeking systems, so fundamental to attachment and the taking in of good introjects, is often impaired. Therapeutic effectiveness thus needs to be informed by the therapist’s own felt embodiment and attachment-based countertransference. Anne and Graham will demonstrate how to remain alive to one’s own bodily sensations and vitalised in this work. As well as slides and video-clips, there will be space for an experiential exercises and discussion with your colleagues and speakers.