Addictions From an Attachment Perspective

This outstanding book is an important collection of papers from the 2013 John Bowlby Memorial Conference by accomplished clinicians from different modalities who share their experience of working with people with different kinds of addiction. The papers bring together an in-depth understanding that addictions are a response to, and hold the pain of, broken attachments and are best treated within healthy interpersonal relationships. For a long time the person with an addiction has been seen as the problem with society being able to live in denial of the causes. These papers open up innovative and effective ways of working with people troubled by addiction from an attachment-informed perspective.Contributors: Cara Crossan, Richard Gill, Lynn Greenwood, Bob Johnson, Liz Karter, Edward Khantzian, Arlene Vetere, Kate White, Jason Wright

Richard Gill initially trained and worked in the USA with people with various addictions. On returning to the UK he headed the clinical team at the St Joseph's Hospital addiction unit in Haslemere, Surrey, whilst also carrying out work at the Priory Hospital, Roehampton. He then set up and for five years ran the SHARP addiction treatment programme in London, which is now part of Action on Addiction. During this time he supervised the Maya Project for women in Peckham whilst also training at The Bowlby Centre. As chair of the accreditation committee for the National Association of Drug and Alcohol Counsellors he became involved in the growth of centres for addiction in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and the Caribbean. He now works in private practice as an attachment-based psychotherapist in central London.