Michael Barnett – Addiction Treatment and Couples Therapy: Using Emotionally Focused Therapy to Strengthen Sobriety

Outline

1. The Medical Model and Addiction
   1. Key Figures in Modern Treatment
2. Emotion Focused Therapy
   1. Emotion Focused Therapy for PTSD
   2. Definition of Trauma
   3. The Power of Treating Trauma Within the Context of the Couple Relationship
3. Neuroplasticity and Change
   1. Importance of Heightened Emotion in Change
   2. How Emotion is More Powerful than Cognition
4. Adverse Childhood Experiences
   1. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Addiction
   2. Attachment and Trauma is Key to Working with Addiction
   3. Importance of Context in a Person’s Life
5. Cycle of Trauma Attachment and Addiction
   1. How the Couple System Hijacks Attachment Fluidity
   2. The Relationship between Attachment and Emotion in Systemic Change
   3. How Partner’s Stress Strategies Become the Other Partner’s Negative Trigger
6. The Process of EFT
   1. Five Basic Moves of EFT
   2. Addressing the Addiction through Attachment Style
   3. Experientially Engage Client with the Underlying Emotion that Addiction Regulates