Breakout Sessions
For a description of the breakout session and a link to the speaker’s bio, click on the session you are interested in.
1. Stop Blaming Mom! The Neurophysiology of Attachment Disorders: Implications for restructuring common theories of early childhood maladaptive development Audie Gaddis PhD, FGICCP
2. Attachment Theory, Family Systems Theory, and Organizational Behavior: The Value of Multiple Lenses Dave Brubaker, PhD, and Kenton Derstine, MDiv
3. We Gather Together: The Role of the Bonded Community in the Internalization of God’s Love Owen Burkholder, Ron Copeland and Jennifer Davis Sensenig, all pastors of Virginia Mennonite Conference
4. The Stories We Tell Ourselves Judy Mullet, PhD and EMU honors students
5. Rupture and Repair: The Rhythm of Sin and Redemption in the Christian Life Curt Thompson, MD
6. Attachment in Core Beliefs and Values: Implications for Self, Others, and the World Craig Shealy, PhD
7. Provider-Patient Relationship: Trust, Attachment, and Self-Advocacy Teresa Boshart Yoder, RN, Masters in Nursing Administration
8. Cross-Cultural Attachment: Elements affecting the student/host family bond Ann Hershberger, PhD, and Don Clymer, MACL
9. Attachment and the Process of Documentary Filmmaking Jerry Holsopple, PhD, and Paulette Moore
10. You’re Looking at a Real Person: Videoblogging as a Tool for Collaboration and Social Connections David Huth, MFA
12. Attachment Theory and Peacebuilding: Does it Scale Up? Gloria Rhodes, PhD, and Jayne Seminare Docherty, PhD
13 The Role of Attachment within Professional Caregiving Susanne Bennett, PhD, LICSW
14. Resilience: Attachment and the Circle of Security in Crisis Consultation Anne Stewart, PhD
15. Attachment and Family/Lifespan Development Harriet Cobb Ed.D. and Rebecca Lahaie
16. The Marschak Interaction Method: Using Play-Based Assessment to Measure Attachment in Home-Based Family Counseling Cheree` Hammond, PhD, and Greg Czyszczon, Ed.S., LPC
17. Spiritual Genetics Jacquelyn E. Meyer, LIMHP
18. Attachment in Psychotherapy and Behavioral Healthcare (for students only) Ron Vogt, PhD
1. Stop Blaming Mom! The Neurophysiology of Attachment Disorders: Implications for restructuring common theories of early childhood maladaptive development.
Audie Gaddis, PhD, FGICCP
A review of recent findings in the neurosciences indicates that attachment disorders transcend traditional theory of caregiver-infant integration as the primary basis for attachment models.
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2. Attachment Theory, Family Systems Theory, and Organizational Behavior: The Value of Multiple Lenses
Dave Brubaker, PhD and Kenton Derstine, MDiv
Although attachment theory emerged in the context of the parent-child relationship, it includes elements that contribute to our understanding of organizational behavior. Family Systems Theory (FST) also emerged in the intra-familial context, and yet has been applied to understanding organizations (particularly religious ones) as emotional systems. How do these two theories contribute to our understanding of organizations, and what are important similarities and differences? Kenton and David will lead a discussion on these questions, including a presentation on the core concepts of FST.
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3. We Gather Together: The Role of the Bonded Community in the Internalization of God’s Love
Owen Burkholder, Ron Copeland and Jennifer Davis Sensenig
What community practices lead toward an internalized assent to the love of God? This session explores the experience of living in bonded communities. We will discuss the contrast in the Believer’s Church between “invitation” and “enforcement,” as well as asking about dysfunction and why some have trouble internalizing God’s love.
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4. The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Judy Mullet, PhD and EMU honors students
What does a psychology of narrative contribute to our understanding of story-formed attachment? How do stories offer identity, transform thinking, and invite us into the lives of others? This session explores the practice of story finding and story telling as a healing art.
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5. Rupture and Repair: The Rhythm of Sin and Redemption in the Christian Life
Curt Thompson MD
Integrating attachment theory and spirituality, this workshop explores the life of Christian discipleship, with its rhythms of rupture and repair, using insights from neuroscience and Scripture. Participants discover what it might mean to experience God as a safe haven and a secure base through practical exercises.
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6. Attachment in Core Beliefs and Values: Implications for Self, Others, and the World
Craig Shealy, PhD
A national study suggests that the most powerful variables for a range of beliefs and values (e.g. politics, religion, culture) are associated with the degree to which people feel that their core needs (e.g. attachment) were or were not met. Participants will examine how attachment processes are associated with how human beings see themselves, others, and the world at large. Implications of such findings for local and global actions, policies, and practices will be discussed.
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7. Provider-Patient Relationship: Trust, Attachment, and Self-Advocacy
Teresa Boshart Yoder
Using case-studies and patient stories, this group will look at the importance of attachment in the patient/ provider relationship. Issues for exploration will include how the healthcare system and provider behavior can facilitate or impede this process, the role of patient self-advocacy, and the ways in which a shared understanding of illness can create a favorable environment for rapport, trust, and communication.
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8. Cross-Cultural Attachment: Elements affecting the student/host family bond
Ann Hershberger PhD and Don Clymer
During the course of a semester abroad, why do some students bond with their host families more readily than others? Does the strength or weakness of this bond affect the student’s adjustment to the host culture? This session will look at reflections on this relationship from both students and hosts in a way that draws connections to the student’s resulting cultural adjustment. Ultimately, we hope to define new ways in which to deepen connections across cultures.
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9. Attachment and the Process of Documentary Filmmaking
Jerry Holsopple PhD and Paulette Moore
Documentary filmmakers form attachments with the individuals they interview. Researchers grapple with the quality of those attachments, the distance of the documentary process, and what a loss might look like once the project is finished. Case studies from our own work, stories from session participants and clips from popular documentaries facilitate discussion around the ethics and logistics of proximity and loss in our work.
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10. You’re Looking at a Real Person: Videoblogging as a Tool for Collaboration and Social Connections
David Huth
Much of the discipline of communication integrates Attachment Theory within an interpersonal context. This session will reflect on how mass communication serves the social motivations of assertion and status or attachment and affiliation.
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11. Creating High-Performance Cultures: The Role of Attachment in Measuring and Increasing Employee Engagement
Don Rheem
Every employee has control over how much effort they volunteer to put into their job each day. Many key business performance indicators rise significantly as a direct result of increased levels of employee engagement. No other single indicator conveys more potential for increasing business performance. This session will examine the work of Engagient, a Washington, D.C. based firm that studies employee engagement, as a starting point for discussing the role of attachment in creating high-performance organizational cultures.
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12. Attachment Theory and Peacebuilding: Does it Scale Up?
Gloria Rhodes PhD and Jayne Seminare Docherty PhD
Attachment theory is a powerful tool for understanding interpersonal dynamics, but this session explores possible attachment dynamics in the group setting. We ask, specifically, what peacebuilders can learn from attachment theory and how can it shape our practice. This is an exploratory workshop with three peacebuilders who will share some insights they have gained from attachment theory as well as questions they have about whether or how this theory might “scale up” to the intergroup level.
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13. The Role of Attachment within Professional Caregiving
Susanne Bennett, PhD, LICSW
This workshop presents a framework for attachment-based supervision and professional caregiving by examining how attachment is linked to a biologically-based “caregiving behavioral system.” The adult caregiving system becomes activated by the attachment needs of more vulnerable others – a central tenet of attachment theory from the outset. When the adult is a professional caregiver (such as a social worker, psychotherapist, healthcare provider, educator, or clergy member), caregiving patterns are influenced by the professional’s own early attachment experiences. When the professional caregiver provides a secure base for the care-receiver (such as a client, patient, student, or parishioner), developmental change unfolds. Implications of this professional caregiving model are discussed in the context of professional education and training, as well as direct practice.
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14. Resilience: Attachment and the Circle of Security in Crisis Consultation
Anne Stewart PhD
Explore the application of attachment constructs and the dimensions of the Circle of Security model to guide crisis intervention and promote resilience in individuals and communities in crisis. This presentation will illustrate the resilience of individuals, families and communities in response to natural and human-induced crises around the globe. We will also consider the ethical challenges of crisis intervention.
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15. Attachment in Families: Creating a Secure Family Base
Harriet Cobb Ed.D. and Rebecca Lahaie
According to Bowlby (1969/1982), attachment behaviors, used to reduce the threat of predators and other dangers, evolved in humans because such behaviors contributed to the child’s likely survival into adolescence. Attachment has therefore always been an inevitable aspect of family life, and it is found to be related to every function within the family system (Hill et al., 2003). Numerous studies have indicated the emergence of a consistent intergenerational pattern of attachment styles with secure attachments lending to secure attachment, insecure attachments lending to insecure attachments, and so on. For Bowlby (1988), the secure base concept was at the very heart of attachment theory and Byng-Hall (1995) identified the development of a secure base as integral to secure attachment within a family. Byng-Hall defines a secure enough family base as a family that provides a reliable network of attachment relationships that enables all family members, of whatever age, to feel secure enough to explore their relationships with each other and with others outside the family. When such phenomenon occur, all members of a family are better equipt to effectively navigate their lives and relationships.
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16. The Marschak Interaction Method: Using Play-Based Assessment to Measure Attachment in Home-Based Family Counseling
Cheree` Hammond, PhD and Greg Czyszczon, Ed.S., LPC
This experiential session will provide an overview of the Marschak Interaction Method (MIM) focusing on its utility for guiding treatment plan development with families in crisis. Participants will gain knowledge of the MIM and its potential application in the home. The presenters will involve participants through discussion and provide opportunities to apply their knowledge using video examples.
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17. Spiritual Genetics
Jacquelyn E. Meyer LIMHP
This workshop explores the felt sense of (dis)connection in churches especially among youth and the sadness that parents experience as their children leave the church. While the promise of God states that if you “raise a child in the way” then the child will not depart from it, the current reality is that churches are losing their young in large numbers. This workshop identifies ways in which we can build connections that last a lifetime and discusses what congregations can do right now.
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18. Attachment in Psychotherapy and Behavioral Healthcare (for students only)
Ron Vogt
Much of our Western culture and current healthcare practices reinforce insecure attachment behaviors in those we are trying to “help.” We will explore some of the problems that bring people to therapy and examine how culturally promoted goals such as changing, getting better, and protecting self and others may perpetuate anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachments and keep ourselves and our clients alienated from one’s true self, others, and God. Insights from Emotionally Focused Therapy for responding to human distress will be highlighted.
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