Preoccupied Attachment
Fear of Abandonment and Chronic Insecurity
Recorded Saturday 3 December 2022
With Linda Cundy
CE Credits: 3 hours
Preoccupied people are anxiously attached and feel chronically insecure. Their relationships are often marked by intense emotion, anger and enmeshed dynamics. They can be passionate but also be experienced as needy, demanding, sometimes manipulative, and have been referred to as “borderline borderline”.
As clients they can be challenging to work with, and therapy often feels stuck or ends badly. Our attachment patterns lay the foundations of unconscious beliefs about ourselves, and expectations we hold of other people and relationships.
READ MORE...These belief systems are played out in the therapeutic relationship, affecting transference and countertransference, attitudes to boundaries, and how the therapy is used.
This day will focus on individual therapy with adults, outlining how preoccupied attachment develops and what it looks like in the consulting room. It will highlight difficulties common difficulties that arise in therapy with this client group and propose a specific focus and clear aims for therapeutic work with preoccupied clients. The impact of trauma on those with a Preoccupied core pattern of attachment will also be outlined.
Continuing Professional Development (CE) credits for 3 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to fill out an evaluation form and pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate.
Access to the Talks On Demand runs for 365 days from the date of purchase.
FULL PROGRAM
The dilemma of preoccupied attachment
Preoccupied individuals are highly anxious. Their fear of abandonment develops in the context of early relationships with caregivers that are marked by inconsistency and mixed messages. To ensure the proximity and attention of their attachment figures throughout life, enmeshed, dependent, and sometimes conflictual relationships are created, leaving little capacity for developing autonomy. The features of preoccupied attachment will be outlined, and the impact on relationships with other people and with the self will be described.
Q&A
A matter of degree: preoccupied attachment, trauma and assessment
Preoccupied attachment may be a fleeting state of mind in response to a crisis or a deeply entrenched, pervasive feature of the personality. This has implications for how relationships with others are conducted and perceived. If there is a risk of abandonment or loss, the reaction may be intense and impulsive – ‘borderline borderline.’ And where trauma impacts on someone who is ‘anxiously attached’, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (Borderline PD) may be diagnosed. Preoccupied and ‘Borderline’ clients are over-represented in therapy services and private practice. It is important to recognise them in order to be aware of risk and provide safety and containment.
Q&A
Specific areas of focus
The major aim of an attachment-informed therapy is to help clients become more secure. The features of Secure Attachment will be outlined, and areas of focus identified that may need to be addressed when working with Preoccupied people. This includes developing firmer boundaries between self and other and facilitating a stronger sense of self and agency. The proposed model is offered as a tool for supervision and self-supervision.
Q&A
FEES (USD)
Includes: 1 year’s access, test and CE Certificate of Attendance, subtitles and transcript
INDIVIDUAL
$78 (or $39 Confer member)
GROUP RATE
$50pp in groups of over 10 (please apply to accounts@confer.uk.com)
CE
Continuing Education (CE) credits for 3 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to fill out an evaluation form and pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate. You can submit this test up to a maximum of 5 times.
This Talk On Demand is accredited by:
- NBCC
- NYSED (Psychology)
This Talk On Demand is NOT accredited by the following organisations:
- ASWB
Please contact events@conferonline.org for any further questions.
Confer has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7136. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Confer is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Confer is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0169
SCHEDULE
00:03:17
The dilemma of preoccupied attachment
01:04:11
Q&A
01:15:17
A matter of degree: preoccupied attachment, trauma and assessment
01:56:30
Q&A
02:20:16
Specific areas of focus
03:02:29
Q&A
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Describe what Preoccupied Attachment means and its effects, and how it differs from other attachment categories.
- Consider what attachment is, the many ways it is revealed, and how the therapist may respond
- Apply knowledge to understand how to enable earned secure attachment for preoccupied individuals