This five-evening course offers a condensed view on a contemporary and historical account of attachment theory across the lifespan with psychoanalytic implications for clinical work. It will bring together the contributions of Bowlby and his followers, including Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, Peter Fonagy, and Beatrice Beebe. The course will also attend to the interplay between attachment theory and psychoanalysis. Participants will have an opportunity to evaluate their own view on a long-standing critique of attachment theory as “not psychoanalytic.”

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

1. Attachment categories from infancy to adulthood and the clinical application of Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
2. The intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns with focus on loss and trauma
3. Reflective functioning and coherence of narrative
4. The clinical relevance of attachment theory and research in psychoanalytic work.

Ella Rogalska, RP, DTATI, Dip. TCPP, ATPPP

Ella Rogalska, RP, DTATI, Dip. TCPP, ATPPP, is a Registered Psychotherapist in private practice in Toronto. Her graduate education is in psychoanalytic psychotherapy (infancy to adulthood). In the past ten years, Ella has worked and researched in infant mental health treatment and education. She was trained in the psychodynamic model of Infant Parent Psychotherapy (IPP) and is now an instructor and supervisor of the Toronto-based model. She is the current President of the Canadian Association of Psychoanalytic Child Therapists (CAPCT) and an Affiliate of the TPS&I.

She dedicates a considerable part of her practice to attachment-based treatment, supervision, and education. Ella has an advanced training in attachment studies from the Center for Attachment Research (CAR) directed by Howard Steele and Miriam Steele, members of the Adult Attachment Interview Trainers’ Consortium.