Annette Kussin M.S.W., RSW, Psychotherapist

Event Speaker

Annette Kussin M.S.W., RSW, Psychotherapist

BIOGRAPHY

Annette Kussin is a Certified Social Worker and Certified Marriage and Family Therapist. She has worked in Children's Mental Health for much of her career as a therapist and Clinical Director. Over many years of practicing therapy, she has offered individual, couple and family therapy specializing in Marriage and Family Therapy, Trauma and Attachment. In 2003 she created the multi-disciplinary Leaside Therapy Centre, which she directed until 2014. She is currently in private practice.

For the past 20 years she has specialized in Trauma and Attachment Theory, offering assessments and therapy to families with adopted children and families struggling with their children. She has developed a model of Attachment Focused Therapy for adults struggling with intimacy and for couples with relationship problems.

Annette believes it is important to understand your early childhood experiences and how these have impacted on your personality, on your relationships and on your parenting in order to address your present challenges.

WORKSHOPS

Secure Parent, Secure Child; Insecure Parent, Secure Child

Speaker: Annette Kussin, M.S.W., RSW, Psychotherapist

There is clear evidence from research that the Adult Attachment of the parents, particularly the primary caregiver, is a predictor of the Attachment of the child. This signifies the importance of parents developing secure attachment either before having children or after they have their children. Even parents with Insecure Adult Attachments who understand their Attachment category and the effect on their own personalities and their parenting, will be able to parent more effectively and not personalize their children’s issues.

The workshop will help participants learn the Adult Attachment Categories, based on the research of Dr. Mary Main and how each category affects parenting.

Participants will learn how to determine a parent’s adult attachment and how to reflect this to the parents with whom they are working non-judgementally.

Parenting interventions will focus on helping parents understand how their attachment affects their parenting, how to parent using secure parenting responses and how they can ensure they do not transmit their insecure attachment to their child/ren. It is important that therapists and counsellors working with an attachment lens understand their own Adult Attachment.

Key Takeaways

Participants will learn:
1. The Adult Attachment Categories
2. How each category affects parenting: The generational transmission of attachment
3. How to help parents understand their particular adult attachment category.
4. Strengths and challenges of each category for parenting
5. Strategies to help insecure parents provide secure based parenting
6. The role of the therapist