Exploring the Dynamics of Attachment in Adult Life^™

No further courses are available at present. When new dates are set they will be advertised on this page.

St Bede’s Pastoral Centre, 21-23 Blossom Street, York YO24 1QA

Check this page regularly for updates.

Please complete the online application form here.

This is a course for professionals offering an opportunity to explore one’s own experience of attachment dynamics in the context of a confidential closed experiential group. The work will be supported by didactic input and time for reflection, application and analysis.

FEE: £785.00 (sterling) €875.00 (euros)

This course seeks to address the fact that as we work in jobs that require us to respond to the needs of others, too often we don’t create the conditions to support our own personal and psychological development.  

Experiences of careseeking and caregiving have their roots in infancy and shape our expectations and responses to careseeking and caregiving in adult life.

As professionals offering a service in the field of mental health and social care, we will be aware of the many ways that people express their careseeking needs, and how difficult it is sometimes to interpret these accurately and respond. People who have had contradictory experiences of caregiving will often tend to miscue professional caregivers so that any attempt at caregiving is frustrated and can end up as a frustrating experience for both parties.

The dynamics of attachment consist of several goal-corrected systems. These are careseeking, caregiving, sexuality, exploratory interest sharing with peers, the personal system for self defence, the internal supportive or unsupportive environments and the personally created external supportive environment (home/lifestyle). The theory suggests that these systems work together as a single process to contribute to and maintain maximum wellbeing. Each session will have a short didactic input on the attachment system to be explored that day, followed by two experiential groups with a short break in between. There will be time to identify what people are learning, discovering or applying to their own practice.  Una McCluskey has been researching attachment dynamics for many years and will seek permission from the group to continue this work.

Scroll to the top of the page to find a link to the online application form.

Dr Una McCluskey
Honorary Fellow (University of York)
Psychoanalytic and Systemic Psychotherapist (UKCP) (Retired member)

Freelance Attachment Consultant.  Author of To be Met as a Person: the Dynamics of Attachment in Professional Encounters. Karnac London, co-author of The Psychodynamics of abuse: the cost of fear, Jessica Kingsley, and joint author with Dr Dorothy Heard and Dr Brian Lake of Attachment Therapy with Adolescents and Adults: theory and practice post Bowlby 2009 (revised 2012), co-author with Nicola Neath of To be Met as a Person at Work: The Effect of Early Attachment Experiences on Work Relationships (2018) and co-author with Michael O’Toole of Transference and Countertransference from an Attachment Perspective:  A Guide for Professional Caregivers (2019). Presented with the Award for Vision, Innovation, Dedication and Achievement (VIDA) in 2004 by the Group Psychotherapy Association of Southern California in appreciation of her contribution to the field of psychotherapy