Fragmentation of the sense of self maintains children’s attachment to abusive caregivers by disowning themselves as “bad” or “unlovable.”   This deeply painful failure of self-acceptance results in lifelong shame and self-loathing, difficulty self-soothing, and chronic dissociative symptoms and disorders.  Without internal compassion, it is difficult to take in the compassion and acceptance of others, complicating relationships. 

This three hour workshop will try to touch on the salient features underlying stage based, trauma informed psychodynamic, relational, and social constructionist couples’ therapy.  We hope to explain the role of secrets, double binds and splitting in traumatic attachments and how to assess and pace the individuals’ and the couple’s window of tolerance in order to learn to own their own feelings and mistakes, stop projecting, manage individual emotions, grieve losses and work toward collaborative co-regulation and reciprocity.  Calming down, creating an alliance with a therapist who is both neutral, and responsive to both parties, so that the therapist and couple can sort through the painful histories that each person brings into the relationship and so that they can begin to live more fully in the present.  

Abstract