Conference Agenda

Attachment theory has increasingly informed psychotherapy theory and practice. Most attachment-based interventions have focused on younger children, where treatment emphasizes improving parenting skills. The work is more complex with high-risk adolescents and young adults, who often need intensive treatment themselves. Many of these youth have experienced repeated attachment ruptures that have fostered negative expectations about themselves and others. Individual work with youth may help them develop a more coherent attachment narrative, and work with parents may strengthen parenting. However, bringing family members together in an attachment-based family therapy context can affect the attachment system on multiple levels. With preparation from the therapist, youth can learn to express attachment-related disappointment rather than turn it against themselves. Parents can then witness these experiences and offer deeper validation and apology. They can also practice attachment-promoting parenting skills in vivo. The therapist can work with parental subsystems to support new attachment goals and interrupt negative attachment cycles, creating more positive interactions. Over time, this sustained exposure to relational competence may help soften the youth’s insecure defensive structures. This key note talk will review this model and how we have rebuilt a family therapy program to directly address attachment structures, in order to repair attachment ruptures and trauma.