Working with Domestic Violence and Emotional Abuse
An Object Relational Understanding
Recorded Friday 10 June 2022
With Dr David Celani
CPD Credits: 3 hours
One of the most difficult relationship patterns which can be brought to psychotherapy is domestic violence in a couple relationship. To begin with it can be very difficult for someone on the receiving end of abuse to take this step. Victims often resist intervention until they are in desperate emotional or physical danger. Even then, their commitment to the therapy may waver, especially when the abusive partner offers promises of change and attempts to draw them back into the relationship and away from therapy.
READ MORE...The relationship between the ‘abused’ and ‘victim’ is a near perfect demonstration of Fairbairn’s concept of “attachment to bad objects”. In this model the unconscious is populated by dissociated and then repressed memories of traumatic interpersonal events experienced in childhood. These buried relational patterns, unknown to the conscious ego, are re-enacted out of conscious awareness with new partners in adulthood. The intolerable memories of neglect and abuse are grouped and condensed into an internal view of the rejecting parent called the “rejecting object”, who is in a hostile and ungiving relationship to the frightened, disappointed and angry child, described by Fairbairn as the “antilibidinal ego”. These two inner ego structures continue to interact in the unconscious, and relational patterns from childhood are endlessly replayed in adult relationships, most likely until therapy intercepts.
This seminar will explore in depth such child created object-relational structures and how they are reactivated in intimate relationships. We shall also hear how Fairbairn’s model can provide exceptional insights for psychotherapists working with the abused adult patient, helping to free them from ancient object-relational patterns and to create healthy relationships.
CPD – Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits for 3 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate.
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