Attachment and Clinical Implications- Some Aspects with Nicola Diamond

Attachment is the emotional bond that is the basis of the love tie that connects the individual to the field of significant others. Why is attachment important? Because according to the quality of this bond, mental health can be secured or damaged. There is a great deal of grounded attachment research that shows how problems in the attachment tie are the basis of emotional distress and mental health issues. Yet attachment is radically underrepresented in our field. 

We first examine why John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, was not taken seriously enough. We address the conflicting perspectives in psychotherapy and foreground the implications for understanding the mental world of the individual differently from Melanie Klein and her followers at the time. For Bowlby, the mental world of the individual is always linked to relationships with others and the environment. We draw out how this orientates us to a social and relationship basis for understanding mental and psycho-somatic ill-health, the new foundations for this way of thinking, and the implications it has for the way we work with our patients in the clinical setting  

In this lecture, I will draw on example(s) to demonstrate how an attachment framework helps us understand trauma, and how this links to mental ill health, and will look at possible relationships between attachment and sexuality in the example(s). 

The lecture will provide the following learning outcomes:

• Why attachment has been underrated
• How attachment theory understands the importance of our emotional ties with others, and how disturbance in these bonds relates to mental and psycho-somatic ill health 
• Understanding some key research studies  
• The different approaches that attachment understanding is based in
• The implications attachment has for explaining mental distress and the way we work in the consulting room 
• Some insights into understanding trauma attachment and sexuality  

About the speaker 

Dr Nicola Diamond, PhD, BPC reg, Member of BPF.  currently in clinical private practice, including on line and Lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic. External examiner for PhD and Clinical Doctorates.Do podcasts. Founding member of the International Attachment Network , IAN. Formerly,  Senior Lecturer, University of East London, prior to that Director of PhD studies, Regents College. Worked as a clinician for many years at the Helen Bamber Foundation (with survivors of trafficking and torture). Also as a psychotherapist for  the former, Women Therapy Centre, London.  Published  widely on psychoanalysis and the body, trauma and attachment. Publications: - books, Attachment and Intersubjectivity (co-author with Mario Marrone) and sole author -Between Skins: The Body in Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Perspectives. Articles include 'On Bowlbys Legacy', 'Sexual Abuse: The Bodily Aftermath, Attachment and the Body', 'When Thought is not Enough','Between Touches', ' Between the Body and Social Trauma: Working with the Aftermath of Trauma', ' The Body and Film: Estranged Body States- A Case of das Unheimlich', 'Some Vicissitudes of Feminine Sexuality, including Excessive Sexuality', ' Between Bodies : Working in the Liminal Zone with Traumatised Clients' (with Paola Valerio), 'A Case of Missing Identity: Working with Disassociation and 'Multiple Selves' in the Countertransference' ( with Mario Marrone),  ' Cuerpo y Languaje en la Crianza. Desbloquear y Transformer al Nino Interior con Talleres Interfamiliares y de Danza con Desarrollo Vital' (con Patricia Martello) .    

*If you are a psychotherapist or counsellor residing in an active conflict zone, you are eligible to attend this event free of charge (regardless of whether you are a bpf member or not). Please email membership@bpf-psychotherapy to enquire about a ticket.