Diana Fosha, PhD., drawing on neuroplasticity, affective neurobiology, attachment theory, developmental research into caregiver-infant interactions, and transformational studies, developed AEDP's fundamentally experiential, dyadic, healing-oriented practice. This workshop will focus how how to work with trauma and dissociation. The videotapes will illustrate experiential clinical work that hugs the upper limits of the window of tolerance as a way of expanding the patient's relational, emotional and receptive affective capacities. The focus will be on techniques involving affirmation and recognition, making use of the therapist's affective responses. The clinical work will demonstrate moment-to-moment tracking informed by Jaak Panksepp's concept of the neurobiological core self. Manifestations of that concept will be tracked from the earliest moment of the 1st session through the end of the treatment in a patient with complex PTSD.
Ruth Lanius MD, PhD, drawing on her work as both world famous neuroscientist and in-the-trenches trauma clinician, will focus on the neuroscience of brain/mind/body correlations underlying five dimensions of consciousness: time, thought, body, emotion, and intersubjectivity and explore how they are affected in trauma, more specifically in dissociation and PTSD. The emergence of the self through the integrated experience of these five dimensions of consciousness and its relationship to the development of major brain networks during childhood and adolescence will also be described. The neuroscience underlying alterations in each of these five dimensions of consciousness frequently observed in various forms of psychopathology will be discussed to demonstrate the importance of these dimensions in the healing practice. Experiential exercises involving the use of imagination, imagery, and mind/body techniques will be utilized to illustrate relevant concepts.