From cradle to kitchen: attachment, food and the self

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04 February 2023

Time: 10:00 - 16:00

Price: Qualified Practitioners £85;Counselling/Psychotherapy Trainees £75;WPF Therapy Trainees/Staff £60;

Location: online

Description

This workshop will be delivered via Zoom online.

We are all engaged with our relationship with food in some way or another. For some, this is a complex dynamic, for others it seems straightforward. Within clinical work the theory and focus is often on eating disorders, but our relationship with food is far wider than that.

  • Are you working with clients who are struggling with their relationship with food?
  • Are you interested in understanding more about the role of attachment in childhood and adult life through the medium and metaphor of feeding?
  • What is ‘normal’ eating and how do we distinguish this from ‘disordered’ eating?
  • How is the way and what we eat influenced by social, historical, transgenerational and gender issues?

Through attending this workshop you will gain:

  • A better understanding of secure and insecure attachment as expressed through food
  • A deeper awareness of the impact of social, historical, transgenerational and gender issues on how and what we eat
  • Ways of thinking about our clients, their attachment histories and relationships with themselves as expressed through feeding themselves and others
  • Tools in the form of questions to bring into clinical work, both with eating disordered clients and where eating is not considered problematic
  • Greater awareness of our own relationships – secure, insecure or disorganised – with food

From the start of life, feeding is a relational experience. The bond between caregiver and infant is brokered in the intimacy of feeding, and our attachment to food is an expression of the relationships we form with other people and ourselves. Our relationship with food expresses something of our attachment histories, secure or insecure: safety and security may be sought in eating or in refusal to eat.

This workshop explores how the relationship with food is shaped in early life in the context of our first attachments, and how food mediates relationships with other people and with ourselves throughout life. We will consider the place of food and feeding in maintaining adult social relationships. Eating disorders are considered from an attachment perspective but are not the sole focus.

The workshop will be accompanied by Powerpoint interspersed with DVD and clinical material. There will be discussion in pairs and small groups focused on specific questions. Participants will have opportunities to consider the role of food in their own lives and to reflect on their clients’ relationships with food, feeding and nourishment.

Target Audience

Qualified and trainee psychotherapists, counsellors, counselling psychologists, eating disorder specialists.

Workshop Leader

Linda Cundy is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. She has run courses on attachment at the Wimbledon Guild since 2000. These have now been formalised into a Post Graduate Diploma in Attachment-Based Therapy, and Linda is the course director and lead tutor. She has also taught for two decades on psychotherapy and counselling courses.

She is the editor of Love in the Age of the Internet: Attachment in the Digital Era  (2015) Karnac, and Anxiously Attached: Understanding and Working with Preoccupied Attachment (2017).

Target Audience:

Training and qualified counsellors and psychotherapists.  Please note that by booking on this workshop you agree to keep all discussion confidential.

Please note that by booking a ticket for this event, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions for CPD events, so please read through them carefully before making your purchase.

https://wpf.org.uk/cpd-events-terms-and-conditions-2020-2021/

If you experience any problems during the application process then please contact events@wpf.org.uk.

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