Description
Overview
Developmental Trauma: The unseen road to Addiction
Developmental Trauma and Addiction share an intimate and interconnected relationship, yet it is a symbiosis that remains largely hidden. Pre and perinatal experiences, unavailable caregivers and early surgical procedures become the fertile breeding grounds for addictive behaviours that potentially can last a lifetime.
This workshop will explore the heroic intention of addiction, contrasting the heroism to the often recognised tragic outcomes and examine how addictive parts of our personality are relentlessly loyal and always have a positive intention for the person in the midst of addiction.
We will explore if addictions are valiant attempts to downregulate nervous system patterns that are chronically stuck in defence responses, but attempts that are ultimately destined to fail? Looking at addiction through the lens of developmental trauma focuses on the dependent person’s individual quest for safety while lacking the neurophysiological platforms and resources available to be sufficiently physiologically calm to co-regulate with others.
This presentation will canvas for an integrated approach to treating developmental trauma and addiction.
Traditionally addiction has been viewed and treated as a noun, an experience that happens to people, however this stance can potentially disempower individuals. Focusing on addiction as a verb, a series of internal conflicts, can foster the addicted individual’s collaborative relationship with self-agency. Ultimately, it is a richer and more effective experience to be the initiator, rather than the respondent of one’s own experience. The workshop will draw on theory and research from the related fields of attachment, addiction, neuroscience and trauma studies, to present this novel, integrated, and immersive theory of addiction and developmental trauma.
Learning Objectives
On successful completion of this webinar, the learner will be able to
- Describe and analyze the relationship between developmental trauma and Addiction, demonstrating how the link can potentially demystify Addictive behavior.
- Attendees will understand Addiction and Developmental trauma through the lens of Polyvagal Theory and Internal Family Systems
- Identify Addiction as a heroic, though unsuccessful, attempt to contain defensive reactions and to upregulate states of Social Engagement.
- Describe the three organizing principles of the Polyvagal Theory
- Attendees will understand that the practice of nonjudgmental, agenda-less right brain presence as the foundation for safety and co-regulation.
- Differentiate between presence and competence and understand how presence is much more important in the integrative treatment of Developmental trauma and Addiction
- Attendees will understand the developmental and intersubjective nature of self-agency and its relationship to Addiction.
