Saturday 1st March 2008 (9.30am-5.00pm)
WHEN DISTRESS HITS THE BODY: WORKING WITH PSYCHOSOMATIC SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADULTS
(Eating Disorders, Self-harm, Difficulties with Breathing, Sleeping, The Immune System, Digestion, Muscular Tension, Chronic Fatigue, Heart Disease and Many Other Forms of Debilitating Illness)
Cost: £145 (includes a complimentary buffet lunch)

There is no emotion without a physiological consequence (Panksepp: 1998; 27)

The body-mind is an amazing communication system. Every moment of every day, via a complex system of chemicals and hormones, information is being sent at top speed from brain to body, from body to brain. When we experience a strong emotion, dramatic changes occur in our muscles and organs, our gut, digestive, respiratory, elimination and immune systems. Prolonged uncomforted stress and distress can have a dramatic disruptive effect on these systems. With an overlay of loss and trauma the effects can be worsened. As Henry Maudsley said, The sorrow that hath no vent in tears makes other organs weep. For many people, effective brain and body stress-regulating systems haven’t been properly established in childhood due to a lack of consistent emotionally responsive parenting. Without intervention in later life, such as therapy or counselling, these people are especially vulnerable to a life blighted by physical ailments or disease.

This conference will focus on exactly how stress and uncomforted distress hits the body, and its particular consequences for children, teenagers and adults. When discussing children, speakers will give particular attention to eating, sleeping and elimination disorders; with adolescents, eating disorders and self–harm; with adults IBS, chronic heart disease, skin disorders, immune disorders, and sleeping problems. Most importantly, speakers will focus on prevention and intervention and in particular how processing painful feelings can protect against ill-health. Speakers will also discuss how insecure attachment can lead to disordered physiology. In contrast, empowering parents to provide secure attachment means affording the child or young person with regulatory capacities that can have a long term positive effect on physical health, digestive processes, breathing, heart rate, temperature, sleeping and even bowel performance.

Benefits from attending this conference

• Gain a deeper, more up-to-date working knowledge of how distress affects the body
• Learn how healing the mind can dramatically impact on physical health
• Learn how to consider whether a bodily symptom is stress related
• Learn how emotionally responsive parenting or later life intervention can regulate emotional and bodily processes resulting in markedly improved physical health

Speakers

Dr Mitch Blair
Consultant Paediatrician and Reader in Paediatrics and Child Public Health at Imperial College, London and Northwick Park Hospital, London. Director of the Mandala Centre for Child Public Health Research and Teaching.

Professor Bryan Lask
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at St George’s University of London. Medical Advisor to the Huntercombe Hospitals UK. Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo, Norway. Co-founder of the first early onset eating disorder service in the UK. Written and published extensively.

Adah Sachs
UKCP Registered Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. Worked for many years in psychiatric hospitals: St Clements (the Royal London Hospital), Huntercombe Manor, a special hospital for adolescents. Visiting lecturer and training supervisor at the Centre for Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

Dr Peter Shoenberg
Lead Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy at the Camden Psychodynamic Psychotherapy services. Senior member of the British Association of Psychotherapists. Author of Psychosomatics: The Uses of Psychopathology. Published many journal articles and chapters on psychotherapy in psychosomatic medicine.

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