On Demand: Healing Relational Trauma II: Therapist Metaskils to Guide Treatment with Each Attachment Style

DATE(S): COURSE AVAILABLE ON-DEMAND
LOCATION: Online Training
PRESENTER(S): Karen Pando-Mars, LMFT 

Course Information

Training Description Part I & Part II of this seminar series are each designed to stand alone; they complement each other without duplicating material. This workshop, Part II, will focus on how therapists can better attune and resonate with patients, helping them to be seen and heard, aiming to set the conditions to establish a secure base in which our patient’s self-at-best can arise. Sometimes the patient’s attachment strategy can challenge the therapist’s capacity to be present, responsive, attuned and empathic. Clinicians often ask “Who is better suited to work with whom in terms of matching attachment styles?” I want to propose that it is not actually the patient’s attachment style itself that challenges therapists to feel inadequate or unable to empathize or triggers our self-at-worst attachment strategy. Rather, my reaction to the specific behavior that is manifesting in the moment is what drives me outside of my capacity to respond with the help that is needed. This workshop is about expanding the clinician’s capacity to respond moment-to-moment by deepening understanding about what is going on with whom and how to tailor the therapist’s stance with respect to patient’s distinctive attachment strategies. This workshop will identify classic blind spots that get elicited by specific aspects of each attachment strategy. We will break down the configuration of each attachment style into its affect regulation strategies and defenses, caregiver hallmarks and the subsequent relational attitudes and patterning, and the seeds of resilience. Video of psychotherapy sessions will also be shown to illustrate the interplay of how these strategies can be further depicted on AEDP’s representational schemas and how we can intervene experientially to engage positive neuroplasticity. I will also describe the way therapists can use specific metaskills to address the impact of relational trauma that drive self-at-worst insecure attachment strategies. Metaskills is a term used by Amy Mindell (1995, 2002) to describe the background feeling attitudes and qualities therapists display that can be used in service of the patient’s therapy. AEDP’s interventions about making the implicit explicit and making the explicit relational can be helpful to apply with specificity to each attachment style. The aim of this workshop is to move towards establishing a base of connection through which our patient’s self-at-best can be engaged to gain traction and momentum for treatment.
 

Presenter

Karen Pando-Mars, MFT, is a psychotherapist in San Rafael, California, and Senior Faculty of the AEDP Institute. She was irresistibly drawn to AEDP in 2005 and captivated by the depth and breadth of this transformational model. She immersed herself in training and consultation with Dr. Fosha and three years of core training with Dr. Frederick. Ms. Pando-Mars is one of the founders of AEDP West and chaired the AEDP Institute Education Committee from 2011-2018. Ms. Pando-Mars' passionate interest in what cultivates deep connection between Self and Other has been furthered by attachment theory and related neuroscience. She is known for her presence, warmth, and the clarity of her presentations. Videotapes of her clinical work are moving and inspiring examples of how AEDP’s explicit relational and experiential practices can help patients heal from relational trauma. Ms. Pando-Mars arrived to AEDP with background in somatic and experiential therapies, including Focusing, Biofeedback, Process-Oriented Psychotherapy, Sandtray-Worldplay, EMDR, and Authentic Movement. These influences are deeply woven throughout her work. She was a founder of The Sandtray Network and a contributing editor of its journal. As adjunct faculty at Dominican University, in San Rafael, California, she taught AEDP as the overarching theoretical model in the Alternative and Innovative Psychotherapies course. She presents workshops on AEDP,  teaches and leads Essential and Advanced Skills courses, Core training and supervision across the United States and internationally.  Her publication “Tailoring AEDP interventions to attachment style,” 2016 Transformance Journal, 6 (2) is the basis for her upcoming book, which will be co-authored with Diana Fosha and published by Norton & Co.