Anger and creativity - the dynamics of aggression in intimate family relationships

In the therapeutic encounter clinicians are often presented with the struggles their patients have with aggression, whether that be linked to repression and the inhibition of anger or conversely, difficulties with managing overwhelming affect.

This workshop for individual, group, family and couple psychotherapists and counsellors will review theories of aggression and explore clinical presentations that illustrate the dynamics of aggression as played out in intimate relationships as well as between patients and therapists. Using attachment and psychoanalytic frameworks, the workshop will enable clinicians to gain a deeper understanding, and an increased capacity to work with this area of difficulty. 

Unconscious conflicts about aggression can lead to a wide range of presenting problems such as difficulties with autonomy and separation, self-harm and other destructive tendencies.

Therapists can learn to identify, understand and work with the defensive strategies that can be employed to avoid conflict. Equally, therapists, daunted by the levels of anger and abuse which some clients express in sessions, can learn how to contain and work with this anger creatively. Understanding projective processes and unconscious anxieties can enable the therapist to orientate their interventions. Techniques derived from mentalisation-based therapy (MBT) can help therapists to feel more confident when working with anger and uncontained affect.

Book here: https://tavistockrelationships.ac.uk/forthcoming-events/1151-anger