Sunday, November 22 | 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Room# Educ. 1214 | BBS Approved | 4 CEHs
XEDU 958 - CLASS #2097-19570
Recent studies indicate that 35% of Iraq war veterans access mental health services in the year they return home. Every service member and his or her family are affected in some way by the disruption of normal life from the time of deployment through the challenges of readjustment upon homecoming. According to military and health care experts, there are not enough providers in the VA system for the mental health crisis emerging among the 1.4 million service members and their families. Since care will often be provided by civilian mental health providers, this is a crucial time for education and training in our community. This half-day workshop will explore the impact of combat stress on family relationships from the perspective of attachment theory. Healthy attachments offer a secure base for adaptive development and the capacity for emotional regulation and resilience. There is a wealth of evidence that links the quality of close relationships to physical and mental health. Separation, fear, loss and helplessness are common experiences in the lives of service members and their families. Acute or post-traumatic stress disorders, depression, and injuries intensify the need for protective and supportive attachment experiences while often negatively impacting an individual’s capacity to seek and receive this comfort. Effective therapy interventions aimed at identifying and altering patterns of interaction can promote healthy attachment bonds, reduce symptoms and facilitate resilience in the family.
Participants in this workshop will learn to:
• Identify normal and adaptive attachment needs expressed in family relationships;
• Identify the impact of combat stress, and the commonly encountered problems of depression
and post-traumatic stress disorder,
on attachment;
• Understand research and clinical experience supporting effective interventions including Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, which strengthen attachment and promote individual and family wellbeing.
PRESENTER: PAMELA J. MCCRORY, Ph.D.
Pamela J. McCrory, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in private practice. She is a part-time faculty member at California State University, Northridge, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling in the Marriage and Family Therapy Program. She provides services on a volunteer basis with The Soldiers Project, a non-profit group providing free education and counseling to military service members of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and their families. She has provided training to military leaders, mental health professionals and service members and their families on the importance of attachment in helping couples and families affected by war at the Combat Operational Stress Conference of the Marine Corps, August, 2008. Her work on couple development was presented at 115th Convention of the American Psychological Association, August 17, 2007, San Francisco, California. She serves on the Board of the Los Angeles County Psychological Association and was the guest editor for the May/June 2008 edition of The Los Angeles Psychologist, Creative Practices: Part 2, and contributed an article on couple development.
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