Attachment, Community & Addiction
– by Dorothea Leicher, LCSW
Thursday, May 31st, 2018; 9:55 am – 10:45 am
1 CEU (#18)
Abstract: The presentation links the “self” to affective scripts, similar to terror management theory. It integrates attachment theory with affect theory, focusing on the experience of safety, delineating the role of community in preventing self-destructive behavior using addiction as example. Self-destructive behaviors from non-addiction contexts will be analyzed as strategy of a profound pessimism, and the interdependence of “self” and “mood” will be highlighted. Cultural factors in the opioid epidemic will also be used as illustration.
Learning Points: At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to: 1) discuss and provide examples of evidence why we are social creatures before anything else; 2) describe and Analyze the self as emerging quality, based on social interactions and attachments; 3) analyze the role of affective attunement in the development of attachment; 4) explain the role of “scripts” for the maintenance of the “self”; & 5) discuss and Correlate changes in underlying affects to changes in the “self.”
References:
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- Fonagy, P. (2001). Attachment theory and psychoanalysis. New York, NY, Other Press.
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- Flores, P.J. (2004). Addiction as an attachment disorder. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson.
- Leicher, D. (2012). Fighting hopelessness: Apparent self-sabotage in depression, addiction, and
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- MacGregor, N. (2010). A history of the world in 100 objects. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
- Ratey, J., & Manning, R. (2014). Go wild: Eat fat, run free, be social, and follow evolution’s other rules for total health and well-being. New York, NY: Little Brown and Co.
- Riskin, D. (2014). Mother nature is trying to kill you. New York, NY: Simon and Shuster.
- Solomon M., & Tatkin, S. (2011). Love and war in intimate relationships. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.
- Wilson, E.O. (2012). The social conquest of earth. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.
Bio of the Presenter:
Dorothea Leicher, LMSW, NCPsyA () is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in Philadelphia. Ms. Leicher is a Supervisory Training Analyst at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. She has taught there as well as at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. She has written and presented on psychoanalytic views of narcissism, on trauma, healing through relationships and other topics.