International Society of Counselling and Clinical Supervisors
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Presenters in Singapore
Presenters in Singapore
5th Asia Pacific Rim International Counsellors and Psychotherapists Conference,
Singapore 1-3 December 2017 (APACS APRICPC 2017)
Treating Addiction as an Attachment Disorder
Dr John Toussaint
An approach to understanding and treating addiction that has produced much interest in recent years, and which shows great promise for effective treatment of those who suffer with addictions, has come from attachment theory. Advances in the field of neuropsychology and brain development have made even clearer the primary nature of attachment for human beings. The process of attachment early in life can affect gene expression and neural structure that will shape a person’s emotional experiences later in life.
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While most studies and theories in the attachment system have focused extensively on the mother-child relationship, very few studies have investigated the role of attachment to the father as an important factor in the development of long term outcomes.
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Empirical studies have looked at this conceptualization and found significant correlations between father-attachment style and addictive behaviours, and have shown that addictions are more likely to occur in individuals who have disruptions in their early attachment system.
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This presentation will articulate those aspects of attachment theory relevant to understanding addiction from its theoretical perspective, define addiction in terms of attachment, and examine the effectiveness of attachment-oriented psychotherapy in the treatment of addictions.
Supervision is a distinct mechanism for protecting clients and providing support for therapists’ professional and personal development. The systematic manner in which supervision techniques, interventions, and strategies are applied are described by supervision models. Supervision models emerged as supervision became more recognised and more purposeful in the 1920’s and evolved ever since from psychotherapy/ psychoanalysis based models to different counselling/ psychotherapy orientations based models, to developmental and social role models, and to the latest, the competency based models as competency based training became a revolution across disciplines. This workshop is a presentation of the article Basa, V. (2017). Models of supervision in therapy, brief defining features. European Journal of Counselling Theory, Research and Practice, 1, 4, 1-5. It gives an overview of supervision models, each with their brief characteristic features.