Mind, Body, Social, & Spiritual Approaches for Healing Attachment: 35 World-Leading Pioneers Share Their Best Practices

Attachment wounds and developmental trauma are often the root cause of many mental health problems, including: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, BPD, and addiction.

Understanding attachment dynamics is therefore vital for anyone working in the helping professions today.

This summit will explore the most essential ideas in attachment theory, research, and how they can be applied to create deep and lasting healing for clients — enabling you to be at the forefront of evidence-based care.

Online Summit | Oct 28 – Nov 1, 2024

Join 20,000+ mental health professionals revolutionising attachment treatment

Speakers Featured In:

Why Should You Attend?

If I were to ask you what the most important variable in mental health was, what would you say?

The Weekend University has spent the past seven years organising conferences and interviewing the world’s leading psychologists, researchers, and authors in an attempt to better understand the human mind, and how best to reduce unnecessary suffering and realise more of our potential.

In speaking with over 200 pioneers, some patterns have begun to emerge…

And we think we might now have an answer to the question posed at the start of this text.

In a word, it’s:

Attachment.

This is the one thing that if we get right, makes everything else easier.

And the thing that if we get wrong (or neglect,) leads to a whole cascade of negative outcomes.

Attachment issues are often what drive people to therapy in the first place.

And although they might not be conscious of it, most therapists—who are doing their job right—are helping their clients to build secure attachment bonds. You could even make the case that all psychotherapies are essentially “technologies” for helping individuals develop internal secure attachment, so that they can heal the ruptures sustained in early life and begin flourishing in their relationships in the present.

This includes:

— Their relationship with themselves.

— Their relationships with others.

— And their relationship with something higher (nature, purpose, spirituality, etc).

We’re not talking out of thin air here either…

Research shows that secure attachment is linked with increased resilience, greater happiness, and stronger personal relationships. It also shows that insecure attachment increases your vulnerability to a whole host of negative outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders.

Importantly, studies have also found that attachment patterns are passed on from generation to generation. This means that if you are able to reshape your attachment patterns in the present, not only are you healing your own wounds, but also those of your parents and ancestors, as well as those of the children and descendents that will follow you.

In other words, by transforming your own inner world, you have the potential to be the person who disrupts a long line of suffering — and be the person responsible for creating a greater sense of peace, harmony, and an improved quality of life for the generations that follow you.

This is why we’re organising the Holistic Attachment Summit this year.

A week-long, online conference exploring the most essential ideas in attachment theory, research, and their clinical applications.

It will bring together more than 30 of the world’s leading pioneers in therapeutic practice.

People like: Bessel van der Kolk, Sue Johnson, Richard Schwartz, Steven Hayes, Dan Siegel, Janina Fisher, Stephen Porges, Pat Ogden, Paul Gilbert OBE, and many more.

What Will You Learn?

The sessions will be spread across a 5 day period, with each day covering a specific theme. Below, you can find a taste of what to expect on each day:

The Big Ideas: An overview of the foundational principles and core concepts that are vital in attachment-based work, including: the relationship between Trauma and Attachment (Dr. Bessel van der Kolk), the role of Personality & Wholeness in Wellbeing (Dr. Daniel Siegel), A Holistic, Contextual View of Attachment (Linda Thai), Applying Attachment in Therapeutic Practice (Prof. Jeremy Holmes), and Society & Attachment (Thomas Hubl).
Working with: This day focuses on working with specific types of attachment issues, such as: relationships (Dr. Stan Tatkin); avoidant, anxious, and disorganised attachment patterns (Dr Graham Music), grief & bereavement (Dr Joanne Cacciatore), intergenerational trauma (Dr. Alicia Lieberman), adoption (Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker), and eating disorders (Rachel Lewis-Marlow).
Creating Earned Security (Body): Day three explores body-based modalities for repairing attachment wounds. Dr Pat Ogden will introduce how sensorimotor psychotherapy can be applied to treat attachment injuries, Irene Lyon will explore the intricacies of nervous system regulation, Deirdre Fay will discuss the surprising link between ancient wisdom traditions and modern attachment research, and Dr Maureen Gallagher will share her unique approach to healing which combines Somatic Experiencing with Inner Relationship Focusing. This day concludes with an exclusive session with Dr Stephen Porges on how Polyvagal Theory can help us better understand and heal attachment wounds.

Creating Earned Security (Mind): The penultimate day of the summit will introduce the most effective mind-based approaches for creating internal earned secure attachment. It features sessions with the late Dr. Sue Johnson (on Emotionally Focused Therapy), Dr. Laurence Heller (on NARM) Dr. David Elliott (on his groundbreaking "Ideal Parent” Model), Dr. Eboni Webb (on attachment and racial trauma), Gayle Williamson (on Internal Family Systems), Dr. Laurel Parnell (Attachment-focused EMDR), and Dr Janina Fisher (on healing traumatic attachment).
Creating Earned Security (Spirit): The final day of the summit will explore the spiritual and existential aspects of attachment healing. Speakers include: Dr. Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems), Professor Steven Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), Dr. Margaret Paul (Inner Bonding), Dr. Bonnie Badenoch (Relational Neuroscience & Spirituality), and Professor Paul Gilbert (interviewed by Jeremy Holmes on the relationship between attachment theory and the new science of compassion).

Plus, as a special bonus for claiming your access, you'll get:

The Holistic Attachment Reading List

For this summit, we interviewed the leading minds from a wide range of disciplines to uncover their best practices for healing attachment and developmental trauma— people like Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, Janina Fisher, Steven Hayes, Pat Ogden, the late Dr Sue Johnson, Richard Schwartz, Laurel Parnell, Dan Siegel, and Linda Thai.

Before each discussion, we asked them to recommend three books that they think every mental health professional should read on the subject of attachment, and we’re now sharing them with you in this free guide.

If you want a “behind the scenes” glance at the ideas that have shaped the leading minds in the field, this is your best chance.

Who Will Be Speaking?

This summit brings together 30 of the world’s leading pioneers in evidence-based attachment treatment. You can see the full lineup below:

Day 1 - Foundations

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

Attachment & Trauma

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has spent his professional life studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences. He translates emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of effective treatments for traumatic stress and developmental trauma in children and adults. You can learn more about his work by going to www.besselvanderkolk.com.

Prof. Jeremy Holmes

Attachment-Informed Psychotherapy

Professor Jeremy Holmes is a clinician, author, leading Attachment expert, and three-time speaker at The Weekend University. For 35 years, he was Consultant Psychiatrist/Medical Psychotherapist at University College London (UCL) and then in North Devon, UK, and Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 1998-2002. He is visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, and lectures nationally and internationally. In addition to 200+ peer-reviewed papers and chapters in the field of psychoanalysis and attachment theory, his books include John Bowlby and Attachment Theory, Exploring In Security, Attachment in Therapeutic Practice, and most recently: “The Brain has a Mind of Its Own”. He was the recipient of the Bowlby-Ainsworth Founders Award 2009.

Linda Thai

A New Vision of Attachment

Linda Thai, LMSW ERYT-200 is a trauma therapist and educator who specializes in brain and body-based modalities for addressing complex developmental trauma. Linda has worked with thousands of people from all over the world to promote mindfulness, recover from trauma, and tend to grief as a means of self care. Linda’s work centers on healing with a special focus on the experiences of adult children of refugees and immigrants. Her teaching is infused with empathy, storytelling, humor, research, practical tools, applied knowledge, and experiential wisdom. To learn more about Linda, you can go to www.linda-thai.com.

Thomas Hübl

The Art & Science of Attunement

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

Sue Marriott & Ann Kelley

The Foundations of Secure Relating

Sue is a licensed clinical social worker who has been in private practice for over 30 years. Her study groups and workshops demonstrate her on-going passion for linking research to real-world applications. Sue has served on several local and national boards that support mental health in communities. She is co-founder and former President of Austin IN (interpersonal neurobiology) Connection and served on the Board of GAINS, the Global Association of Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies and is a current Emeritus Board member of the nationally-based, Family Equality Council, to name a few. She provides workshops and training related interpersonal neurobiology, modern attachment, and group psychotherapy.

Ann is a licensed psychologist who specializes in couples therapy from an integrative, attachment-based relational framework. In her former clinical role, Dr. Kelley served as the director of clinical treatment for a state-wide juvenile justice facility, where she supervised comprehensive interventions centered on trauma work and rehabilitation. She served as expert witness for courts and was often the agency spokesperson for national and international media outlets as a key resource regarding treatment of early trauma as a divergence to incarceration. In addition to clinical work and podcasts, she provides workshops and training in interpersonal neurobiology, modern attachment and couples.

Anna Runkle

Re-Regulated: Healing Childhood PTSD

Anna Runkle leads a movement to help men and women worldwide to heal trauma symptoms and change their lives—whether or not they have access to professional help. More than 900,000 men and women worldwide subscribe to her YouTube channel, blog, courses and coaching programs, where she teaches the principles and techniques she has used to recover from her own Childhood PTSD. Her approach includes simple, self-directed exercises to calm emotional triggers and neurological dysregulation, and to begin changing the self-defeating behaviors that are common for people who have lived much of their lives dysregulated. She lives with her husband and two sons in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dan Siegel

Attachment, Personality, & The Search for Wholeness

Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative. Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

Day 2 - Working With..

Dr. Stan Tatkin

Thriving in Relationships

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy®. He is an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. His new book, co-authored with Marion Solomon, is Love and War in Intimate Relationships: Connection, Disconnection, and Mutual Regulation in Couple Therapy. Dr. Tatkin’s next book, Wired for Love.

Dr. Joanne Caciatorre

Integrating Grief: A Holistic Approach

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is a bereaved mother and the founder of the MISS Foundation, an international NGO that serves families whose children have died, and the Selah Carefarm, a sustainable restorative community that provides aid to anyone suffering traumatic grief. She is also a Professor and Senior Scholar in the Wrigley Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, spearheading the Graduate Certificate in Trauma and Bereavement. Her best selling book, Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief, is a national award winning best seller that has helped revolutionize the way our culture thinks, and feels, about grief. She works with and counsels families from all around the world who have experienced catastrophic deaths. She served on Oprah and Prince Harry’s Mental Health Advisory Board for several years and was featured in their docuseries ‘The Me You Can’t See.” Dr. Jo, believing that current practices around food production are a social, ethical, and environmental justice issue, is a vegan and hasn’t eaten meat since 1972. She also teaches meditation, mindfulness, and compassion and ahimsa practices to students and clients from around the world. If you’re a provider seeking supervision or consultation, For more information on Dr. Jo visit her website.

Dr. Graham Music

Embodiment, Attachment, and Embracing Complexity in Therapy

Dr Graham Music, PhD is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre and an adult Psychotherapist in private practice. Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department, he works at the Portman as a forensic psychotherapist, and his clinical experience has for decades been mainly with trauma. He has developed and managed a range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment and neglect. He supervises and teaches nationally and internationally, and has a particular interest in linking cutting-edge developmental findings with therapeutic practice. His publications include Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Hope (2019), Nurturing Natures: (2016, 2010), Affect and Emotion (2001), The Good Life: (2014), Resparking (2022), as well as co-editing From Trauma to Harming Others (2021).

Rachel Lewis-Marlow

Understanding Eating Disorders Through Attachment Theory

RACHEL (she/her) is a somatically integrative psychotherapist, dually licensed in counseling and therapeutic massage and bodywork. She is a Certified Advanced Practitioner in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and has advanced training and 25 + years of experience in diverse somatic therapies including Craniosacral Therapy, Energetic Osteopathy, Oncology massage and Aromatherapy.

Rachel began her work with eating disorders in Residential, PHP and IOP treatment programs. There she developed the Embodying Recovery group therapy protocol which forms the basis for the EMBODIED RECOVERY for EATING DISORDERS (ERED) treatment model. She provided program development, training and supervision for the implementation of the ERED model to enhance the effectiveness of current best practices, such as DBT, Interpersonal Process, ACT groups. She also developed the Body Wisdom group protocol, an alternative to the traditional body-image group, which focuses on enhancing the mind-body relationship through mindful experience of and through the body.

She has extensive experience as a teacher and presenter, focusing on accessing the body’s unique capacity to give voice to the subconscious and to lay the foundation for healing and maintaining psychological and physical health. In her private practice in Chapel Hill, NC, Rachel specializes in working with people exploring recovery from trauma, eating disorders, and dissociative disorders.

Dr. Howard Stevenson

Racial Literacy & Attachment

Dr. Howard Stevenson is the Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education, Professor of Africana Studies, in the Human Development & Quantitative Methods Division of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Executive Director of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative, a research, program development, and training center that brings together community leaders, researchers, authority figures, families, and youth to study and promote racial literacy and health in schools and neighborhoods. From 2015 to 2021, he was co-director of Forward Promise, a national philanthropy office that funds community-based organizations that help families of color heal, grow, and thrive above the trauma of historical and present-day dehumanization.

He received the 2020 Gittler Prize, by Brandeis University, for outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic, and/or religious relations. He was listed in the 2021 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings of the top university-based scholars in the United States who did the most to shape educational practice and policy. In 2021, Dr. Stevenson was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (NAEd). The NAEd advances high-quality education research and its use in policy and practice and consists of U.S. and international associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education.

Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker

Adoption & Attachment

Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker is a licensed psychologist, international/transracial adoptee of color, and an adoptive parent. She specializes in providing mental health support focused on adoption, trauma, and racial identity work through her private practice based in Denver, Colorado. She is a frequent speaker and trainer at adoption agencies, camps, and conferences throughout the U.S., and the creator of the National Adoptee-Therapist Directory. She is also the author of “The Adoptee Self-Reflection Journal,” “The Adoptive Parent Self-Reflection Journal,” and the “Adoptees Like Me” illustrated series for elementary readers.

Dr. Alicia Lieberman

Preventing Intergenerational Trauma

Dr. Lieberman is the Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair in Infant Mental Health and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, and Director of the Child Trauma Research Program. She is a clinical consultant with the San Francisco Human Services Agency. She is active in major national organizations involved with mental health in infancy and early childhood. She is past-president of the board of directors of Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, and on the Professional Advisory Board of the Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute. She has served on peer review panels of the National Institute of Mental Health, is on the Board of Trustees of the Irving Harris Foundation, and consults with the Miriam and Peter Haas Foundation on early childhood education for Palestinian-Israeli children.

Born and raised in Paraguay, she received her BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. This background informs her work on behalf of children and families from diverse ethnic and cultural origins, with primary emphasis on the experiences of Latinos in the United States.

Dr. Lieberman is currently the director of the Early Trauma Treatment Network (ETTN), a collaborative of four university sites that include the UCSF/SFGH Child Trauma Research Program, Boston Medical Center, Louisiana State University Medical Center, and Tulane University. ETTN is funded by the federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, a 40-site national initiative that has the mission of increasing the access and quality of services for children exposed to trauma in the United States. Her major interests include infant mental health, disorders of attachment, early trauma treatment outcome research, and mental health service disparities for underserved and minority children and families. Her current research involves treatment outcome evaluation of the efficacy of child-parent psychotherapy with trauma-exposed children aged birth to six and with pregnant women involved in domestic violence. As a trilingual, tricultural Jewish Latina, she has a special interest in cultural issues involving child development, child rearing, and child mental health. She lectures extensively on these topics nationally and internationally.

Day 3 - Creating Earned Security (Body)

Dr. Pat Ogden

Healing Attachment Wounds: A Sensorimotor Approach

Pat Ogden, PhD, is a pioneer in somatic psychology, the creator of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy method, and founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.  Dr. Ogden is trained in a wide variety of somatic and psychotherapeutic approaches, and has over 45 years of experience working with individuals and groups.  She is co-founder of the Hakomi Institute, past faculty of Naropa University (1985-2005), a clinician, consultant, and sought after international lecturer. Dr. Ogden is the first author of two groundbreaking books in somatic psychology: Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy  and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (2015) both published in the Interpersonal Neurobiology Series of W. W. Norton. Her third book in this series, The Pocket Guide to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, published in 2021, and she is working on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Children, Adolescents and Families with Dr. Bonnie Goldstein. Her current interests include groups, couples, children, adolescents, and families; complex trauma; Embedded Relational Mindfulness; implicit bias, intersectionality and culture; the relational nature of shame; presence, consciousness, and the philosophical/spiritual principles that underlie Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.

Irene Lyon

Attachment, The Nervous System, & The Dangers of Misattunement

Irene Lyon, MSC. and nervous system expert, teaches people around the world how to work with the nervous system to transform trauma, heal body and mind, and live full, creative lives. To date, her online programs and classes have reached over 9,500 people in over 90 countries. Irene has a Master’s Degree in Biomedical and Health Science and also has a knack for making complex info easy for ALL of us to understand and apply to our lives. She has extensively studied and practices the works of Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais, Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing), and Kathy Kain (founder of Somatic Practice). Irene spends her free time eating delicious food, hiking in the mountains or walking along the Pacific Ocean in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Deirdre Fay

Healing Attachment Wounds, Becoming Whole, & Making an Impact

Deirdre Fay, MSW is a thought leader with over 35 years of experience exploring the intersection of wisdom traditions and contemporary psychotherapy as a “Modern Day Bodhisattva (Compassion) Training.” In deliberately choosing to cultivate compassion healing is not an accident but the sure result of consistent and persistent practice as we develop an UnShakeable Heart, Solid, Steady, and Secure in the face of all life circumstances. She’s the author of Becoming Safely Embodied (2021), Attachment-Based Yoga & Meditation (2017) as well as co-author of Attachment Disturbances in Adults (2016). You can check more of her work at dfay.com.

Jan Winhall, M.S.W. F.O.T.

Attachment, Embodiment, and Focusing

Jan Winhall, MSW, FOT is an author, teacher, and psychotherapist in Toronto, Canada. She is author of “Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model”, by Jan Winhall, Routledge, 2021. Jan is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Social Work, University of Toronto and Co-Director of Borden Street Clinic, a psychotherapy and teaching centre. She is a Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute and Director of Focusing on Borden, a psychotherapy and training centre. Jan presents internationally on trauma and addiction.

Dr. Maureen Gallagher

Healing Attachment Wounds with Inner Relationship Focusing

Maureen Gallagher Ph.D. is a Licensed Psychologist (NY, NJ), Somatic Experiencing Faculty Member, and Inner Relationship Focusing Trainer. Her work and teaching are dedicated to the embodiment of psychotherapy. She does this by integrating an approach informed by somatic awareness and somatic intervention along with adult attachment work and a relational focus. She brings a broad range of experience and training to this endeavor, including Certifications as a Relational Psychoanalyst and Supervisor, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist and Supervisor, Inner Relationship Focusing Trainer, Integral Somatic Psychology training, SE Touch skills training, and Certification as a Biodynamic Cranial Sacral Therapist. Her clinical work integrates relational psychoanalysis and experiential and process-oriented models of attachment theory with somatic psychotherapies.

Tracy Jarvis

Integrating Sensorimotor Psychotherapy & Deep Brain ReOrienting

Tracy Jarvis, MSc, UKCP is a registered psychotherapist and has more than 20 years experience in the field of psychology and mental health. Tracy has an integrative background with a specialism in neuroscience and studies how Sensorimotor Psychotherapy intersects with other trauma modalities as well as the interface between science and trauma treatment.

More widely, Tracy is a Senior Consultant to the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London. She is the former Managing Director of PESI UK (previously Founder and Director of Psychotherapy Excellence), a not-for-profit organisation and the largest clinical content provider in the UK and Europe. In addition, Tracy has a specialist private practice in PTSD and complex trauma. She teaches, advises, and consults on trauma for various organisations worldwide, emphasising the importance of a bio-directional treatment approach to treating trauma.

Dr. Tamara Russell

Neuroscience, Embodiment, & Changing Attachment Patterns

Dr. Tamara Russell works with individuals and organisations advising on how to use mindfulness techniques to optimise performance and improve mental and physical well-being. She is the Director of the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence, London, which has as its aim the evaluation of creative yet authentic mindfulness applications for all spheres of life. Combining her clinical, neuroscience, and martial arts training, Dr. Russell’s approach engages both body and mind, for a total solution to manage the stressors of our modern working environment. She specialises in delivering mindfulness training in the health sector, running introductory workshops for mental health workers and other health professionals. Dr Tamara Russell, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist, and the Director of the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence in London. In this session, we explore the science of mindfulness, how it can be a powerful catalyst for change, and Tamara’s groundbreaking Body in Mind Training (BMT) approach. If you’re interested in learning more mindfulness moving meditation, please click the link to learn more about Tamara’s online course: https://namu.com.br/landing-page/mindfulness-moving-meditation

Dr. Stephen Porges

Polyvagal Theory & Attachment

Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, (Norton, 2017), co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018) and author of Polyvagal Safety: Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation (Norton 2021). Dr. Porges is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol ™ (SSP), which is used by therapists to improve social engagement, language processing, and state regulation, as well as to reduce hearing sensitivities.

Day 4 - Creating Earned Security (Mind)

Dr. Sue Johnson

Attachment & Emotion Focused Therapy

Dr. Sue Johnson was a leading innovator in the fields of couple therapy and adult attachment. She was the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy (EFT), which has demonstrated its effectiveness in over 30 years of peer-reviewed clinical research. Sue has received numerous awards acknowledging her development of EFT, including the APA’s “Family Psychologist of the Year” in 2016 and the Order of Canada in 2017. Her best-selling 2008 book Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love has taught countless couples how to enhance and repair their love relationships. It remains one of the best-selling relationship help books on the market today. It has since been adapted into a workshop format. Sue’s 2014 book, Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science in Romantic Relationships, outlines the latest understanding of why and how we love, based on scientific evidence and cutting-edge research. You can learn more about Dr Johnson’s pioneering work by visiting: drsuejohnson.com and EFT training at iceeft.com.

Dr. Laurence Heller

Attachment and the Core Dilemma with NARM

Dr. Laurence Heller is the founder of the NeuroAffective Relational Model© (NARM), a specialized psychobiological approach to working with developmental trauma. He holds a Ph.D in psychology and was in private practice for over 30 years. The NARM Model is presented in the best selling book Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image and the Capacity for Relationship, which is currently published in more than 15 languages. His new book with Brad Kammer is The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma: Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resolve Complex Trauma presents the clinical model. He is also the co-author of Crash Course, a book on shock trauma: He speaks several languages fluently and for the past 30 years has been conducting seminars in the NARM approach throughout the United States and Europe. He and his teachers present NARM worldwide. He is currently working on a project led by Christina Bethell, Ph.D , a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others to bring a trauma-informed understanding to Pediatricians and General Practitioners throughout the U.S. Their first article for this project was published in 2021: Social and Relational Health Risks and Common Mental Health Problems Among US Children Published by Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America co-authored with Christina D. Bethell, PhD, MBA, MPH, (lead) Andrew S. Garner, MD, PhD, Narangerel Gombojav, MD, PhD, Courtney Blackwell, PhD, Tanar Mendelson, PhD

Dr. Laurel Parnell

Attachment focused EMDR

Dr. Parnell is a leading expert on the therapeutic tool, eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing which is more widely known as EMDR. While Dr. Parnell has trained thousands of clinicians in EMDR both nationally and internationally, Dr. Parnell has also taught transpersonal psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and was core faculty at John F. Kennedy University in the Graduate School for the Study of Human Consciousness. Currently, Dr. Parnell teaches EMDR through Alliant International University, Omega Institute, Esalen Institute, ID Institut in Kassel Germany, and the The New York Open Center. You can learn about Dr Parnell’s work and forthcoming trainings by visiting: www.drlaurelparnell.com.

Dr. David Elliott

Integrative Attachment Therapy

Dr. Elliott received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1989 from Harvard University. His clinical training while at Harvard included externships at the Tufts University Counseling Center, the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Massachusetts, and a clinical psychology internship at McLean Hospital, the psychiatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at McLean Hospital, where he worked on the Adolescent and Family Treatment Unit and at the hospital’s mental health outpatient clinic. He was licensed as a Psychologist in Massachusetts in 1990, and in Rhode Island in 1993.

Recognizing from an early age that there are many dimensions to human experience, any and all of which can contribute to well-being or to difficulty, Dr. Elliott has maintained a commitment to learning and understanding the whole range of human possibility — from the deepest confusions and struggles of psychosis, to the patterns of personality that create personal and relational conflicts, to the development of the self in ways that promote both independence and intimacy, and to higher levels of growth that allow for flourishing and even a recognition of oneself as beyond the limits of the personal self.

Dr. Eboni Webb

Racial Trauma, Adoption, & Attachment

Eboni Webb, PsyD, HSP earned her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology (MSPP). She began her clinical work as assistant clinical director and program director at Mental Health Systems, PC (MHS), one of the largest providers of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in the United States. Dr. Webb is a highly rated international trainer in DBT, and she served as an advisor to the DBTNCAA. Organizations Dr. Webb provides training for include PESI, Jack Hirose and Associates, and Lane Pederson and Associates. In 2010 Dr. Webb opened the private practice Kairos in Middle Tennessee. Kairos, now The Village of Kairos, offers diverse DBT specializations including DBT for trauma-based disorders and co-occurring disorders. The Village of Kairos has expanded therapy programs, better known as Restorative Services, to include individual and group therapy sessions for adolescents, parents, families, and adults including pre-and post-adoption services and in-the-moment coaching for clients. Her practice serves communities of color, including working with transracial adoptions. The vision of The Village of Kairos is to help clients build a life worth living alongside a village of practitioners with lives worth sharing. Dr. Webb adamantly believes that it takes a village to restore a single life. WebbJAM emerged out of her clinical practice in order to extend her psychoeducation, consultation, and somatic restoration services to a larger community both nationally and internationally.

Gayle Williamson

IFS, the Self, Embodiment, & Attachment

Gayle Williamson (MIACP) is an Internal Family Systems psychotherapist who runs a private practice in Dublin, Ireland (www.ferneytherapy.ie). Her foundation training was humanistic integrative and she went on to qualify in various modalities; but after encountering IFS, and experiencing its transformative effects on her clients and herself, she now practises exclusively using the IFS model and specialises in trauma.

Gayle is passionate about communicating IFS’s benefits to other therapists and offers her own online courses and workshops in the paradigm-shifting approach. As a qualified clinical supervisor, she runs regular IFS supervision groups; and she also co-hosts a podcast, Purely IFS, that aims to support other therapists who are transitioning to IFS.

As a former journalist, Gayle has written widely on mental health in national press; and her most recent article was a peer-reviewed feature on “The Myth of Mental Illness” in Inside Out (February 2024), the professional journal of the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy.

Dr. Janina Fisher

Healing Traumatic Attachment Patterns

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School. An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is an Advisory Board member of the Trauma Research Foundation and the author of three books, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017), Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021), and The Living Legacy Instructional Flip Chart (2022). She is best known for her work on integrating mindfulness-based interventions into trauma treatment, and she is also the creator of Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) therapy.

Day 5 - Creating Earned Security (Spirit)

Dr. Steven Hayes

Psychological Flexibility: The Missing Link in Attachment

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. The author of forty-three books and more than six hundred scientific articles, he has served as president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science and is one of the most cited psychologists in the world. Dr. Hayes initiated the development of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and of Relational Frame Theory (RFT), the approach to cognition on which ACT is based. Most recently, he has been focused on developing Process Based Therapy along with Prof Stefan Hofmann.

Dr. Margaret Paul

Healing Attachment Wounds with Inner Bonding

Dr. Margaret Paul is the author/co-author of several best-selling books, including Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By You?, Inner Bonding, Healing Your Aloneness, The Healing Your Aloneness Workbook, Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By My Kids?, and Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God? Dr. Paul’s books have been distributed around the world and have been translated into eleven languages. Margaret holds a PhD in psychology and is a relationship expert, noted public speaker, workshop leader, educator, chaplain, consultant and artist. She has appeared on many radio and TV shows, including the Oprah show. She has successfully worked with thousands of individuals, couples and business relationships and taught classes and seminars since 1967. Margaret continues to work with individuals and couples throughout the world — mostly on the phone. She is able to access spiritual Guidance during her sessions, which enables her to work with people wherever they are in the world. Her current passion is working on and developing content for this Website, as well as distributing SelfQuest®, the software program that teaches Inner Bonding® and is donated to prisons and schools, as well as sold to the general public. Margaret is passionate about helping people rapidly heal the root cause of their pain and learn the path to joy and loving relationships. In her spare time, Margaret loves to paint, make pottery, take photos, watch birds, read, ride horses, and spend time with her grandchildren.

Prof. Paul Gilbert OBE

Attachment and Compassion in Psychotherapy

Professor Paul Gilbert, FBPsS, PhD, OBE is a British clinical psychologist, the founder of compassion focused therapy (CFT), compassionate mind training (CMT) and author of books such as The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges, Overcoming Depression. He has researched evolutionary approaches to psychopathology for over 40 years with a special focus on the roles of mood, shame and self-criticism in various mental health difficulties for which Compassion Focused Therapy was developed. Professor Gilbert has written/edited 21 books and over 200 papers. In 2006 he established the Compassionate Mind Foundation as an international charity with the mission statement: “To promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion”.

Heather Mason

Enhancing Attachment Security: Integrating Yoga and Neurosequential Processing

Heather is the founder of both The Minded Institute, an internationally renowned yoga therapy school, and the Yoga in Health Care Alliance, focused on bringing yoga into the UK’s NHS. She holds master’s degrees in Buddhist Studies, in Psychotherapy, Medical Physiology, and has extensive training in Neuroscience. Heather has been teaching yoga since 2001 and has specialized in the use of yoga therapy for mental health populations since 2007. She designed and taught an elective on yoga at the Boston University School of Medicine and created and taught the bioscience course the MUIH launched its MA in yoga therapy. Actively focused on the integration of yoga into healthcare, in 2018 Heather helped create an All-Party Parliamentary Group, “Yoga in Society”. Heather has also co-authored “Yoga and Mental Health” and “Yoga on Prescription”. In 2023 Heather and co-director Elaine Collins developed the first yoga therapy psychotherapy course in the world. This course is accredited by the NCIP.

Dr. Bonnie Badenoch

Attachment & Healing Shadow Parts

Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, PhD, is the co-founder of Nurturing the Heart with the Brain in Mind, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering awareness of the brain, mind, and relationships to create a more awake and compassionate world. She is the author of Being a Brain-Wise Therapist: A Practical Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology (W.W. Norton, 2008) and The Heart of Trauma (2017). Bonnie, along with her wife, currently teaches a class titled Therapy as Spiritual Practice. She is also an active member of the Global Association for Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies (GAINS). You can learn more about her work at www.nurturingtheheart.com.

Dr. Richard Schwartz

IFS & Attachment: Becoming Your Own Therapist

Richard Schwartz, PhD., began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS. Learn more at: www.ifs-institute.com.

Register for Your Free Pass.

As can be seen from the lineup above, this is a rare opportunity to learn directly from the world’s leading pioneers from a wide range of therapeutic disciplines.

By registering, you can access all sessions (100% free), enabling you to be at the forefront of evidence-based attachment treatment.

Why Should I Sign Up For
The Holistic Attachment Summit?

Be at the Cutting Edge — Achieve Mastery in Your Therapeutic Work

Never before have the leading minds from such a wide range of disciplines been brought together for one event. This will give you a “big picture” overview of the most essential ideas and frameworks you’ll need for healing attachment issues, so you can offer the best possible service to your clients.

World-Class Quality Content & Transformational Insights

This is not your ordinary online event. We’ve brought together the leading pioneers— people like Dan Siegel, Janina Fisher, Steven Hayes, Pat Ogden, Stephen Porges, Bessel van der Kolk, and Paul Gilbert to provide a once-in-a-lifetime educational experience.

You Don’t Even Need To Leave Home — Attend From Your Computer, Phone or Tablet

There’s no flight or hotel room to book… saving you money, unpaid work leave, and time away from your family.

Who is this For?

This summit is for anyone interested in understanding attachment issues and how best to heal them.

You might be:

— A mental health professional; e.g., a psychologist, psychotherapist, counsellor or coach, attending to ensure your knowledge base is at the forefront of evidence-based care, so that you can offer the best possible service for your clients.

— A student of psychology seeking to broaden your learning in different areas of the subject.

— A member of the general public who wants to understand what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to healing attachment wounds.

— Someone who struggles with relationships, intimacy, or maybe you’d like to improve your own emotional intelligence, so you can enjoy a more connected way of life.

What Past Speakers are Saying About The Weekend University:

Register for Your Free Pass.

As can be seen from the lineup above, this is a rare opportunity to learn directly from the world’s leading pioneers from a wide range of therapeutic disciplines.

By registering, you can access all 30+ sessions (100% free), enabling you to be at the forefront of evidence-based attachment treatment.

Meet Your Host
The Weekend University.

The Weekend University’s mission is to make the best education in psychology more accessible, so that people can use the knowledge to improve their quality of life.

To do this, we organise live conferences, interviews, and courses with world leading psychologists, professors, and authors.

Since 2017, we’ve hosted over 60 conferences, as well as over 230 talks and interviews with world-leading experts, which we’ve released via our YouTube and Podcast.

The Holistic Attachment Summit is our attempt to bring together 35 of the world’s leading experts in evidence-based attachment treatment, and make them accessible to you in one single live event.

This means you’re getting the highest quality material from the best and brightest in the field – all in one place.