NICABM – Working with the Pain of Abandonment

Arichive : NICABM – Working with the Pain of Abandonment

Working with Abandonment: 26 Top Experts Share the Latest Strategies to Help Clients Heal

Being abandoned hurts. In the moment, it can feel like you can’t breathe and that life is about to end. And then comes the painful sensations that ripple through the body and fill you with paralyzing panic.

When this happens to a client, they can become fearful of ever experiencing abandonment again. Problem is, they can then develop harmful coping strategies that not only create more pain, but put them at even greater risk of being rejected.

So how do we work with the desperate behavior and hair-trigger nervous system that can make abandonment a self-fulfilling prophecy?

We turned to the world’s 26 top experts to hear how they work with clients who have been abandoned. Here are the latest strategies that you can start using in your work today.

Working with the Pain of Abandonment

How to Work with Clients Who Are Hypersensitive to Rejection

Peter Levine, PhD     Ron Siegel, PsyD

Judson Brewer, MD, PhD     Melanie Greenberg, PhD

• The specific neural pattern that fuels a fear of abandonment
• One way to help clients shift out of a rejection-oriented mindset
• How to work with a client’s panic when being rejected

Key Strategies for Working with Abandonment and Trauma

Bessel van der Kolk, MD     Peter Levine, PhD

Kelly McGonigal, PhD     Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP

Melanie Greenberg, PhD

• How PTSD can lead to powerful brain schemas that invite rejection from others
• One practice to help clients with panic disorder regulate their body when triggered by abandonment
• How trauma-informed neurofeedback can neutralize reactivity to an experience of rejection

How to Approach Shame That Drives a Fear of Rejection

Dan Siegel, MD

• How the ruminating brain can lock clients into ambivalent relationships that invite shame
• How to work with clients whose sense of defectiveness fuels a fear of abandonment

How to Recondition a Nervous System Damaged by Abandonment

Stephen Porges, PhD     Deb Dana, LCSW

• How abandonment leaves a deep tracing on the nervous system (and what this means for treatment)
• Why the nervous system will often sabotage offers to co-regulate
• How to help a client’s nervous system tolerate ruptures in a relationship

How to Read the Abandonment Story Your Client’s Body Is Telling

Pat Ogden, PhD     Bonnie Goldstein, PhD     Deb Dana, LCSW

• How to recognize possible signs of early life abandonment in your client’s body
• How a client’s physiology can reveal the way they’re managing a fear of abandonment

Ways to Change Fearful Behavior That Sets a Client Up for Further Abandonment

Pat Ogden, PhD     Melanie Greenberg, PhD     Ron Siegel, PsyD

Donald Meichenbaum, PhD     Terry Real, MSW, LICSW

• Two specific ways a client’s fear of abandonment can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
• How to reframe a client’s neediness to make it an ally in their healing
• How to help a client stay regulated when their partner rejects their needs

How to Help Clients Stop Sacrificing Their Boundaries to Avoid Being Abandoned

Joan Borysenko, PhD     Kelly McGonigal, PhD     Ron Siegel, PsyD

Judson Brewer, MD, PhD     Melanie Greenberg, PhD     Pat Ogden, PhD

• The addiction model that leads a client to soften their boundaries (and how to change it)
• The painful reason why some clients will gamble away their principles in a relationship
• Two practical ways to help clients shore up their personal boundaries

A 3-Step Strategy to Expand a Client’s Tolerance of Rejection

Steven Hayes, PhD     Kelly McGonigal, PhD

• How to help clients engage their fear of abandonment without getting overwhelmed
• How to adjust your treatment of abandonment when the client dissociates
• A compassionate strategy to help clients break a paralyzing fear of abandonment

How to Treat A Fear of Abandonment Linked to Betrayal

Shelly Harrell, PhD     Richard Schwartz, PhD     Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT

• One way to reduce the stigma and humiliation a client attaches to their experience of betrayal
• The damaging way clients often approach decisions when they fear loss