Rethinking Personality Disorders: The Search for Secure Attachment

Courtney Armstrong, LPC

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 Personality disorders may not be disorders at all, but creative ways of coping with early attachment trauma. Understanding this often ignored factor can help you more easily build rapport with troubled clients, avoid frustration, and increase positive treatment outcomes. In this presentation, you’ll discover how to:

• Identify research that has found a correlation between early attachment trauma and the later development of personality disorder traits.
• Match personality disorder traits to attachment style traits to develop effective strategies for treatment.
• Identify at least one evidence-based treatment strategy that improves attachment patterns for each type of insecure attachment style.

Learning Objectives

1. Explain how attachment trauma impacts brain development, emotional regulation skills, and personality development.
2. Discuss the association between three primary insecure attachment styles and each of the ten personality disorders.
3. Assess how to avoid common therapeutic mistakes in clinical practice with this population.
   1. Understand the function of defensive, manipulative behaviors as creative coping strategies to manage attachment needs.
   2. Use of DBT and mentalization to improve emotional regulation and interpersonal skills.
4. Identify at least one evidence-based treatment strategy that improves attachment patterns for each type of insecure attachment style.

Presenter Bio: Courtney Armstrong is a licensed professional counselor, author, and international speaker who specializes in grief and trauma recovery. Known for her warm, witty style and ability to translate scientific discoveries into easy-to-use therapeutic strategies, she is author of the books Rethinking Trauma Treatment: Attachment, Memory Reconsolidation and Resilience, The Therapeutic “Aha!”: 10 Strategies to Get Your Clients Unstuck, and Transforming Traumatic Grief.