Addiction as an Attachment Disorder


Book Description

This work shows how to give substance abusers an attachment experience and a sense of community where they feel they are accepted and belong. Therapy, directed along the lines described, allows the person to get close to others who are accepting of him without a cost to his identity and autonomy.




Addiction, Attachment, Trauma and Recovery: The Power of Connection (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)


Book Description

2020 Award Winner for the Independent Press Award in the category of Addiction & Recovery. A new model of addiction that incorporates neurobiology, social relationships, and ecological systems. Understanding addiction is no longer just about understanding neurons or genes, broken brain functioning, learning, or faulty choices. Oliver J. Morgan provides a fresh take on addiction and recovery by presenting a more inclusive framework than traditional understanding. Cutting- edge work in attachment, interpersonal neurobiology, and trauma is integrated with ecological- systems thinking to provide a consilient and comprehensive picture of addiction. Humans are born into connection and require nourishing relationships for healthy living. Adversities, however, bring fragmentation and create the conditions for ill health. They create vulnerabilities. In order to cope, individuals can turn to alternatives, “substitute relationships” that ease the pain of disconnection. These can become addictions. Addiction, Attachment, Trauma, and Recovery presents a model, a method, and a mandate. This new focus calls for change in the established ways we think and behave about addiction and recovery. It reorients understanding and clinical practice for mental health and addiction counselors, psychologists, and social workers, as well as for addicts and those who love them.




Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair


Book Description

Winner of the 2018 International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) Pierre Janet Writing Award. A comprehensive treatment approach for the repair and resolution of attachment disturbances in adults, for use in clinical settings. With contributions by Paula Morgan-Johnson, Paula Sacks, Caroline R. Baltzer, James Hickey, Andrea Cole, Jan Bloom, and Deirdre Fay. Attachment Disturbances in Adults is a landmark resource for (1) understanding attachment, its development, and the most clinically relevant findings from attachment research, and (2) using this understanding to inform systematic, comprehensive, and clinically effective and efficient treatment of attachment disturbances in adults. It offers an innovative therapeutic model and set of methods for treating adult patients with dismissing, anxious-preoccupied, or disorganized attachment. In rich detail, it integrates historical and leading-edge attachment research into practical, effective treatment protocols for each type of insecure attachment. Case transcripts and many sample therapist phrasings illustrate how to apply the methods in practice. Part I, "Foundational Concepts," features a comprehensive overview of the field of attachment, including its history, seminal ideas, and existing knowledge about the development of attachment bonds and behaviors. Part II, "Assessment," addresses the assessment of attachment disturbances. It includes an overview of attachment assessment for the clinician and a trove of practical recommendations for assessing patients' attachment behavior and status both outside of and within the therapeutic relationship. In Part III, "Treatment," the authors not only review existing treatment approaches for attachment disorders in adults, but also introduce an unprecedented, powerful new treatment method. This method, the "Three Pillars" model, is built on three essential clinical ingredients: Systematically utilizing ideal parent figure imagery to develop a new positive, stable internal working model of secure attachment Fostering a range of metacognitive skills Fostering nonverbal and verbal collaborative behavior in treatment Used together, these interdependent pillars form a unified and profoundly effective method of treatment for attachment disturbances in adults—a must for any clinician. In Part IV, "Type-Specific Treatment," readers will learn specific variations of the three treatment pillars to maximize efficacy with each type of insecure attachment. Finally, Part V, "A Treatment Guide and Expected Outcomes," describes treatment in a step-by-step format and provides a success-assessment guide for the Three Pillars approach. This book is a comprehensive educational resource and a deeply practical clinical guide. It offers clinicians a complete set of tools for effective and efficient treatment of adult patients with attachment disturbances.




New Directions in Treatment, Education, and Outreach for Mental Health and Addiction


Book Description

This practice-enhancing volume assembles the latest innovative thinking on working with clients who have both mental health diagnoses and substance use disorders. Diagnosis is a central focus of the coverage, untangling the often-knotty considerations surrounding dual diagnosis and the complex issues surrounding treatment even in frequently seen combinations (e.g., depression/alcohol abuse). The section on practice emphasizes meeting patients where they are and making use of their community, cultural, and spiritual contexts in crafting interventions. And the book’s ambitious chapters on professional development describe training programs with the potential to produce the next generation of responsive, knowledgeable, and flexible therapists. Among the topics covered: · Comprehensive assessment of substance abuse and addiction risk in adolescents. · The relationship between attachment and addiction. · Addiction in the community: the role of emergency services. · Substance use during and after major crisis and disaster: a practitioner’s guide. · Practice, advocacy, and outreach: perspectives on addiction services. · Teaching the importance of developing the therapeutic relationship. New Directions in Treatment, Education, and Outreach for Mental Health and Addiction equips health and clinical psychologists, social workers, and addiction counselors and educators with a well-rounded understanding of a growing population, and a wealth of perspectives on effective new interventions.




Trauma and Addiction


Book Description

For the past decade, author Tian Dayton has been researching trauma and addiction, and how psychodrama (or sociometry group psychotherapy) can be used in their treatment. Since trauma responses are stored in the body, a method of therapy that engages the body through role play can be more effective in accessing the full complement of trauma-related memories. This latest book identifies the interconnection of trauma and addictive behavior, and shows why they can become an unending cycle. Emotional and psychological pain so often lead to self-medicating, which leads to more pain, and inevitably more self-medicating, and so on--ad infinitum. This groundbreaking book offers readers effective ways to work through their traumas in order to heal their addictions and their predilection toward what clinicians call self-medicating (the abuse of substances [alcohol, drugs, food], activities [work, sex, gambling, etc.] and/or possessions [money, material things].) Readers caught up in the endless cycle of trauma and addiction will permanently transform their lives by reading this book. Therapists treating patients for whom no other avenue of therapy has proved effective will find that this book offers practical, lasting solutions. Case studies and examples of this behavioral phenomenon will illustrate the connection, helping readers understand its dynamics, recognize their own situations and realize that they are not alone in experiencing this syndrome. The author deftly combines the longstanding trauma theories of Van der Kolk, Herman, Bowlby, Krystal and others with her own experiential methods using psychodrama, sociometry and group therapy in the treatment of addiction and posttraumatic stress disorder. While designed to be useful to therapists, this book will also be accessible to trade readers. It includes comprehensive references, as well as a complete index.




Attachment Issues in Psychopathology and Intervention


Book Description

To be a human being (or indeed to be a primate) is to be attached to other fellow beings in relationships, from infancy on. This book examines what happens when the mechanisms of early attachment go awry, when caregiver and child do not form a relationship in which the child finds security in times of uncertainty and stress. Although John Bowlby, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, originally formulated attachment theory for the express purpose of understanding psychopathology across the life span, the concept of attachment was first adopted by psychologists studying typical development. In recent years, clinicians have rediscovered the potential of attachment theory to help them understand psychological/psychiatric disturbance, a potential that has now been amplified by decades of research on typical development. Attachment Issues in Psychopathology and Intervention is the first book to offer a comprehensive overview of the implications of current attachment research and theory for conceptualizing psychopathology and planning effective intervention efforts. It usefully integrates attachment considerations into other frameworks within which psychopathology has been described and points new directions for investigation. The contributors, who include some of the major architects of attachment theory, link what we have learned about attachment to difficulties across the life span, such as failure to thrive, social withdrawal, aggression, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, dissociation, trauma, schizo-affective disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, eating disorders, and comorbid disorders. While all chapters are illuminated by rich case examples and discuss intervention at length, half focus solely on interventions informed by attachment theory, such as toddler-parent psychotherapy and emotionally focused couples therapy. Mental health professionals and researchers alike will find much in this book to stimulate and facilitate effective new approaches to their work.




Clinical Management of Sex Addiction


Book Description

Clinical Management of Sex Addiction’s newest edition updates many of the original chapters from 28 leaders in the field with new findings and treatment methods in the field of sex addiction. With a growing awareness of sex addiction as a problem, plus the advent of cybersex compulsion, professional clinicians are being confronted with sexual compulsion with little clinical or academic preparation. This is the first book distilling the experience of the leaders in this emerging field. It additionally provides new chapters on emerging areas of interest, including partner counseling, trauma and sexual addiction, and adolescent sex addiction. With a focus on special populations, the book creates a current and coherent reference for the therapist who faces quickly escalating new constellations of addictive sexual behavior. Readable, concise and filled with useful interventions, it is a key text for professionals new to the field and a classic reference for all clinicians who treat sex addiction.




The Therapeutic Community


Book Description

This volume provides a comprehensive review of the essentials of the Therapeutic Community (TC) theory and its practical "whole person" approach to the treatment of substance abuse disorders and related problems. Part I outlines the perspective of the traditional views of the substance abuse disorder, the substance abuser, and the basic components of this approach. Part II explains the organizational structure of the TC, its work components, and the role of residents and staff. The chapters in Part III describe the essential activities of TC life that relate most directly to the recovery process and the goals of rehabilitation. The final part outlines how individuals change in the TC behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally. This is an invaluable resource for all addictions professionals and students.




Don't Try This Alone


Book Description

Kathy was an overachiever-an economist, technical writer, and classical singer married 27 years to her college sweetheart. It looked like Kathy was fine. But deep within her hid a pain from infancy so severe that a cascade of adult life crises finally triggered it. And once it exploded, the pain was unbearable. Kathy was suffering attachment disorder, a psychological condition potentially affecting almost half the US population. Caused by traumatic stress in the first three years of life, attachment disorder correlates with the nation's 50 percent divorce rate and widespread mental health issues. Yet no one talks about its prevalence, so many sufferers go untreated, forced to live with their pain in silence-without a hint of its cause. This was certainly true for Kathy. But when her initial forays into psychiatric help failed, Kathy decided to treat herself. It was a mistake that almost cost her life. Told with candor and quirky, ironic humor, Don't Try This Alone will resonate with anyone suffering attachment damage. It knows no boundaries; it strikes those who believe they had wonderful childhoods as well as the obviously abused. Yet there's hope! Kathy's story also shows: help and healing are out there.




Attachments


Book Description

Unlock the secret to loving and lasting relationships! This book is for anyone who desires closeness, especially in the most intimate relationships: marriage, parenting, close friends, and ultimately with God. The answer to why people feel and act the way they do lies in the profound effect of a child's bonding process with his or her parents. How successfully we form and maintain relationships throughout life is related to those early issues of "attachment." Author Dr. Tim Clinton is recognized as a world leader in mental health and relationship issues—and he knows intimately what it is like to feel unloved. The child of a mentally ill mother who locked him in a closet and a father who was frequently gone, Clinton struggled with attachments for many years before discovering the secret to loving and being loved. Citing four primary bonding styles, you will learn: Why we love, feel, and act the way we do How to conquer depression, anxiety, anger, and grief How to be a sensitive, secure parent to your children How God’s love is enough to penetrate the brokenness and remove negative emotions from your life If you have come out of a painful, damaging, or traumatic past, reading this book will teach you how to experience the love and closeness you long to feel.