Avoidant Attachment: Shame and Defences Against Intimacy

with Linda Cundy

Course information

People with a “dismissing” pattern of attachment have a huge repertoire of defences that they use to keep others – including their therapists – at arm’s length. They may be full of anger and lash out at others, or are self-controlled and perfectionist, demanding high standards of themselves and other people and are contemptuous when these are not achieved. They can be self-sufficient, driven or evasive. The core difficulty is shame – they are not acceptable to themselves.

This seminar focuses on the inner lives of highly defended people, their relationships with other people and with themselves. It will address difficulties in establishing a therapeutic alliance and helping clients who are hypersensitive to shame, exposure or intrusion.

A specific focus for therapeutic work will be proposed. We will also consider the impact of the therapist’s own core pattern of attachment.

Speaker

Linda Cundy is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. She has taught for two decades on counselling and psychotherapy courses and is also an independent trainer specialising in attachment, human development, and clinical practice.

Linda is Course Director of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Attachment-based Therapy at the Wimbledon Guild, and Chair of Hackney Bereavement Services. She has written / edited a book, “Love in the Age of the Internet: Attachment in the Digital Era”, to be published this autumn by Karnac.

What previous participants have said about this course

‘Felt salient to my work; leaving feeling stimulated and energised. No resentment despite missing a rare sunny day in Glasgow! Thank you!”
Avoidant Attachment: Shame and Defences Against Intimacy, 19 May 2018

‘A wonderfully insightful presentation — delivered with passion and great depth of knowledge.”
Avoidant Attachment: Shame and Defences Against Intimacy, 24 March 2018

‘Linda is very confident and very knowledgable. This, for me, was high quality and very worthwhile CPD.’
Avoidant Attachment: Shame and Defences Against Intimacy, 25 November 2017

‘I found the day extremely informative, not only in understanding the theory but in how it presents in therapy and how we work with that. Linda gave very good examples from her own experience which were useful. Excellent.’
Avoidant Attachment: Shame and Defences Against Intimacy, 20 May 2017

Course programme

Saturday, 05 December 2020

Course venue

The Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Peter Street, Manchester

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