Talk

As part of its Community Lecture Series, MPS Art Therapy presents a talk by Judith Jordan, PhD, LCSW, CASAC. RSVP here. CEC's available for ATR-BC's.

Judith Jordan’s lecture will cover her doctoral research, which produced empirical data showing that individuals who become immersed in Alcoholics Anonymous for a period of 90 days can improve the quality of their interpersonal relationships and increase their capacity for adaptive affect regulation. Her ongoing scholarship and research focus is on the effects of parental addiction on infant and child development.

Judith Jordan is a licensed clinical social worker and a certified alcohol and substance abuse counselor specializing in addiction in individuals and families. She treats addiction issues from an evolving neuro-bio-psycho-social perspective using attachment theory as a framework. She has been working in the addiction field for over 20 years and is currently in private practice in New York City and East Hampton, NY. She also serves as president of the board of the Employment Program for Recovering Alcoholics (EPRA), a non–profit organization dedicated to helping recovering individuals return to the work force. Judith also teaches and is involved in curriculum development at the Psychoanalytic Study Center’s Advanced Psychodynamic Addictions Training Program.

Lecture learning outcomes objectives:
Provide participants with an understanding of how individuals who experience suboptimal attachment relationships early in life later turn to substances to provide them with regulatory functioning and intimacy that was lacking in their early experiences.
Provide an overview of the similarities between the empirically based concepts of attachment theory (classic and modern) and the principles and philosophy of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
llustrate how AA can be seen as a care-giving system and a vehicle for neurobiological restructuring, and how it can develop the capacity for affect regulation, self-reflective functioning and mentalization.
Provide quantitative research findings that support the hypothesis that participation in AA for a 90-day period can improve an individual's capacity for adaptive affective regulation and the quality of their interpersonal relationships.