Addiction and Chronic Pain

Cravings

Roots of Addiction and Chronic Pain in Early Adoption

Recorded Friday 9 December 2022

With Lucy Hill, Dr Marilyn Sanders and Dr Frances Sommer Anderson

CPD Credits: 3 hours

Skin-to-skin contact between the new-born and birth mother helps to lay a foundation for secure embodied attachment. Conversely, dysregulation in the wake of early separation in the form of a suboptimal postnatal environment can predispose the adopted baby to the risk of addiction and chronic somatic pain in adulthood.

Our presenter, Lucy Hill, was born in the early 1960s in a mother and baby home and was relinquished by her mother at the age of two months.

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FULL PROGRAMME

Dr Marilyn Sanders
Whisked away

The human newborn has an evolutionarily-based biological expectation of the mother’s presence. The newborn expects mother’s physical and emotional proximity, her sensitivity and attunement, her contingent responsiveness and social connectedness. Sadly, there may be disruptions of the newborn’s expectations by anticipated or unanticipated events. Examples of physical separation may include maternal illness requiring separation, relinquishment for adoption, or the baby’s medical need for intensive care services. Others may be in physical proximity but unable to emotionally access their mothers due to maternal stress and distress. Marilyn’s talk will describe the neurobiology of early maternal-infant relationships and the impact of disruptions of early connectedness on short- and long-term infant and maternal well-being.

Lucy Hill
Finding my voice in my own adoption
Lucy sought assistance from Dr Frances Sommer Anderson following over ten years of unresolved chronic back pain. During initial in-person sessions, Lucy made only brief reference to her adoption at two months old as she had no access to emotional experiences that she could connect it to. The analytic couple developed their relationship online, physically separated in different continents and time zones which, in between appointments, quickly began to feel torturous for Lucy. The cravings for Fran became so overwhelming, she sensed that she needed to disclose them to ensure the efforts in therapy continued to be authentic. These feelings were tinged with shame and conflict and tangled with increasing urges to use sugar and alcohol. To raise them felt perilous. The disclosure however proved to be a transformational navigation tool, an entry port into the heart space of longing that Lucy’s Birth Mother had left in her wake.

Q&A

Dr Frances Sommer Anderson
Like mother… alive, but out of reach

The flexibility of the analytic holding space for Lucy, an international client who came for treatment of chronic back pain, facilitated the emergence of her cravings for contact with her analyst’s body. Prior to experiencing back pain, she had similar cravings for alcohol and sugar and was in recovery from alcohol addiction five years when they met. Through implicit embodied communication, her analyst’s willingness to receive and elaborate Lucy’s cravings for her analyst’s body enabled Lucy to view cravings for alcohol and sugar, and chronic back pain, as proxies for craving her birth mother’s body. This process evolved into a successful search for her birth mother. The unfolding of her reunion and the vicissitudes of the attachment relationship will be elaborated.

Q&A

Discussion with Q&A

FEES

Includes: 1 year’s access, test and CPD Certificate of Attendance, subtitles and transcript

INDIVIDUAL

£60 (or £48 Confer member)

GROUP RATE

£50pp in groups of over 10 (please apply to accounts@confer.uk.com)

CPD

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits for 3.5 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. You can submit this test up to a maximum of 5 times.

SCHEDULE

00:05:46
Dr Marilyn Sanders

00:34:47
Lucy Hill

01:22:08
Q&A

01:38:36
Dr Frances Sommer Anderson

02:18:14
Q&A

02:35:03
Discussion with Q&A

02:59:42
End

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By attending this workshop virtually, participants will be able to:
  • Recognise the importance of helping the adoptee find their own narrative about their experience of having been relinquished for early adoption.
  • Identify the roots of addiction and chronic pain in the wake of emotional dysregulation due to very early separation from the birth mother.
  • Integrate commentary by a neonatologist with psychoanalytic theories of early development.
  • Identify the neuroceptive states of the autonomic nervous system.
  • List the biological expectancies of the human newborn.