Addictions from an Attachment Perspective: Do Broken Bonds and Early Trauma Lead to Addictive Behaviours?

156 Pages·2014·0.45 MB·English

by  Richard Gill

ADDICTIONS FROM AN
ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVE
The John Bowlby Memorial Conference Monographs Series
Other titles in this series:
Touch: Attachment and the Body
edited by Kate White
Unmasking Race, Culture, and Attachment in the Psychoanalytic Space
edited by Kate White
Sexuality and Attachment in Clinical Practice
edited by Kate White and Joseph Schwartz
Trauma and Attachment
edited by Sarah Benamer and Kate White
Shattered States: Disorganised Attachment and Its Repair
edited by Judy Yellin and Kate White
Terror Within and Without: Attachment and Disintegration: Clinical
Work on the Edge
edited by Judy Yellin and Orit Badouk Epstein
Talking Bodies: How Do We Integrate Working with the Body in Psychotherapy
from an Attachment and Relational Perspective?
edited by Kate White
From Broken Attachments to Earned Security: The Role of Empathy
in Therapeutic Change
edited by Andrew Odgers
ADDICTIONS FROM
AN ATTACHMENT
PERSPECTIVE
Do Broken Bonds and Early
Trauma Lead to Addictive
Behaviours?
THE JOHN BOWLBY MEMORIAL
CONFERENCE MONOGRAPH 2013
Edited by
Richard Gill
The John Bowlby Memorial Conference Monographs
Series Editor: Kate White
First published in 2014 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2014 to Richard Gill for the edited collection, and to the individual
authors for their contributions.
The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work have
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-107-6
Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ix
INTRODUCTION xiii
Richard Gill
CHAPTER ONE
Attachment theory and The John Bowlby Memorial
Lecture 2013: a short history 1
Kate White
CHAPTER TWO
Addiction: treatment and its context 11
Jason Wright
CHAPTER THREE
The Self-Medication Hypothesis and attachment theory:
pathways for understanding and ameliorating addictive
suffering 33
The twentieth John Bowlby Memorial Lecture
Edward. J. Khantzian
v
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Alcohol misuse, attachment dilemmas, and triangles of
interaction: a systemic approach to practice 57
Arlene Vetere
CHAPTER FIVE
Taking the toys away: removing the need for self-harming
behaviour 69
Lynn Greenwood
CHAPTER SIX
Using “intent” to remedy mal-attachment 95
Bob Johnson
CHAPTER SEVEN
Struggling with abstinence 103
Richard Gill
CHAPTER EIGHT
Technology, attachment, and sexual addiction 111
Cara Crossan
CHAPTER NINE
Gambling addiction: seeking certainty when relationship
is the risk 119
Liz Karter
APPENDIX I 125
Reading list
APPENDIX II 129
The Bowlby Centre
INDEX 133
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to The John Bowlby Memorial Conference 2013 Planning Group:
Catherine Mitson, Carol Tobin, France Couelle, Helene Everitt, and
Brenda Prince for their creative work in producing this conference with
the aim of providing some necessary understanding of why addiction is
so prevalent in contemporary society. A special thank you to all the con-
tributors to the conference whose knowledge was shared in such a per-
sonal way in order to ground addiction in a place of understanding.
The clinicians who presented the paper at the memorial lecture
would like to thank their clients for the personal information they gen-
erously provided and whose names have been changed to protect their
identity.
Finally, thanks to our twentieth John Bowlby Memorial Lecturer,
Edward Kahntzian whose courageous work over many years provided
a stimulating presentation to open up this conference.
A special thank you to Oliver Rathbone for his continuing belief in
the value of publishing these monographs and to Rod Tweedy and his
team from Karnac Books for their patience and support in its produc-
tion and publication.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Permission
In Chapter Four, the excerpt from Attachment and Loss, Volumes 1
and 2 by John Bowlby (1973) was reproduced by kind permission of
The Random House Group.
ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
Cara Crossan is a qualified and accredited addiction therapist,
consultant, and clinical supervisor. She has over thirteen years experi-
ence of working with individuals and families affected by addiction.
She holds a Masters Degree in Addiction Psychology and Counselling
and is a qualified Hazelden trained addiction therapist. Cara special-
ises in the treatment of trauma and its manifestations in addictions
and compulsive behaviours. She has accomplished extensive training
with Dr Patrick Carnes and Dr Kenneth Adams in the United States
where she is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist Candidate (CSAT). In
the UK, Cara is a trustee of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual
Addiction and Compulsivity (ATSAC). ATSAC provides information
and offers support on sex addiction and compulsivity.
Richard Gill initially trained and worked at Hazelden in Minnesota
USA in 1988/9 with people with various addictions. On returning to
the UK he headed the clinical team at the St Joseph’s hospital addiction
unit in Haselmere, Surrey whilst also carrying out work at the Priory
Hospital Roehampton. He then set up and ran for five years the SHARP
addiction treatment programme in London which is now part of Action
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