Summary: Attachment relationships, both the real and the represented, serve as major modulators of arousal, activity, attention, affect and anxiety across the life span. This presentation examines, in depth, the formation and unfolding patterns of parent-child attachment relationships and how they serve regulation from a psycho-sensory perspective. From this conceptual platform, the presentation will translate theory and research into practical strategies reflecting the roles of parents and “use-of-self” as therapeutic agents in the service of strengthening patterns of secure attachment and promoting regulation in young children.
Level: Intermediate
Intended Audience: Occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, physical therapists, special education teachers, psychologists, early intervention specialists, nurses, physicians, mental health providers and parents
Prerequisite: None
Presenter: Gilbert M. Foley, Ed.D serves as Consulting Clinical Director at the New York Center for Child Development in New York City and Consulting Psychologist and faculty member of the Institute for Parenting at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. He is a retired tenured faculty member of Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology where he taught for 20 years in the Department of School-Clinical Child Psychology and coordinated the infancy-early childhood track. As Senior Clinical Supervisor in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU School of Medicine-Bellevue Hospital Center, he was an innovator in the technique of reflective supervision. While serving as the Chief Psychologist in the Pediatric Department of the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Dr. Foley trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and also completed a fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center with the late, Sally Provence M. D. For eleven years Dr. Foley served as the Director and Principle Investigator of the Family Centered Resource Project, a Federally Funded model/demonstration, outreach and technical assistance agency providing training to the infant/early childhood intervention community nationally. Dr. Foley‘s clinical and teaching career has been devoted in large part to working with infants and young children with special needs and their families. He is the author of several books and numerous articles. His most current book with Dr. Jane Hochman, “Mental Health in Early Intervention” is published by Brookes. The Loss-Grief Model developed by Dr. Foley, is the official approach of the Colorado Department of Education parent program. He lectures and consults widely, nationally and internationally, having recently returned from South Africa lecture tour on the DIR approach to working with young children with autistic spectrum disorder and was an invited presenter at the First International Conference on Preschool Education in China sponsored by UNICEF and Nanjing University. Dr. Foley began his career as the psychologist for the Berks County Childcare and Preschool Education Programs of the Berks County Intermediate Unit.
Learning Objectives:
- Gain knowledge about the formation and unfolding patterns of attachment relationships
- Identify the ways in which the patterns of attachment, real and represented, serve as modulators of regulation
- Define the psych-sensory perspective
- Define the roles of parents and “the use of self” in the therapeutic process
- Operationalize “use-of-self-strategies” you can employ in your practice to strengthen patterns of secure parent-child attachment in the service of regulation
Continuing Education: STAR Institute for SPD is an AOTA Approved Provider of Continuing Education. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.
Upon full completion of the course video, participants must complete and pass a quiz with at least 80% accuracy to receive a certificate of completion.