Course Description

Self-alienation maintains attachment to abusive caregivers by disowning one’s self as “bad,” a solution made possible by the innate ability of young children to create imaginary worlds. The cost is a painful failure of self-acceptance maintained by shame, self-loathing, dissociation, and denial. Without internal compassion, it becomes difficult to take in the acceptance of others or tolerate rejection. To overcome self-alienation, the therapy must focus on transforming the implicitly remembered traumatic experiences by helping clients observe painful emotions and body sensations as communications from their disowned selves and then providing the ‘missing experiences’ for which their child parts have longed. Learn more in this presentation by Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify four clinical signs of self-alienation.
2. Participants will be able to identify distressing emotions as communications from young wounded parts.
3. Participants will be able to assess the contribution of each child part in surviving the trauma.
4. Participants will be able to apply techniques that foster ‘earned secure attachment’ as the outcome of attachment bonding between adult and child self.

Presenter(s)

Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is the Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School. An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015), author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017) and the forthcoming book, Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (in press). She is best known for her work on integrating newer body-centered interventions into traditional psychotherapy approaches. More information can be found on her website: www.janinafisher.com.