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 The Ties that Bind: Understanding Attachment Theory as a Path to Connection

Workshop Objectives:

This workshop will introduce participants to the foundations of attachment theory and its implications in clinical settings. Attachment theory provides a lens to conceptualize our earliest connections to caregivers and how these connections go on to become building blocks to later relationships with others. When our earliest connections are positive, we develop positive ways of viewing our self and others that can lead to lifelong enriching relationships. However, when our early experiences are either traumatic or are routinely invalidating, we may grow to view ourselves or others as unsafe or unreliable. This workshop will discuss how attachments are formed and how our brains are hard-wired for connections. By engaging in experiential activities, large and small group discussion, as well as video demonstrations, participants leave the day with a better understanding of how attachment can lead us back to each other.

After participating in this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Identify attachment styles and how these styles manifest within behaviors
2. Review comprehensive interventions that incorporate elements of attachment theory
3. Learn how trauma disrupts attachment and possible associated psychopathologies
4. Understand how a strong, working relationship can begin to repair attachment deficits

About the Presenters:

Melissa Kraemer Smothers, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the graduate counseling program at Mount Mary University. She is the current Journal Editor of the Wisconsin Counseling Journal and board member of the Wisconsin Counseling Association. Dr. Kraemer Smothers presents on counseling ethics, attachment, trauma, supervision and gender dynamics within the counseling relationship. As a licensed psychologist, she supervises LPC’s in training and maintains a limited private practice in which she sees individuals and couples for counseling. She presents on a regular basis at local, state and national conferences. She earned her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her master’s degree in Community Counseling from Boston College. She completed her predoctoral internship at the University of Wisconsin Counseling and Consultation Services and a postgraduate fellowship at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, MA.

Brian Smothers, Psy.D., is an Associate Professor of clinical psychology and a member of the core faculty at the Wisconsin School of Professional Psychology (WSPP). His interests include training students in psychodynamic psychotherapy. His work integrates contemporary psychoanalytic thinking with applied hermeneutics. In addition to teaching and supervising, he is in private practice at Elmbrook Counseling Center where he sees patients in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Dr. Smothers is also a psychological consultant for St. Francis de Sales Seminary. Dr. Smothers is a 2014 American Psychoanalytic Association Fellow and 2015 Teaching Scholar. He received his B.A. from Samford University, an M.A. from Boston College, and a Psy.D. from WSPP. He completed his predoctoral internship at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University, a postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University Counseling and Mental Health Services, and a postgraduate fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis.