Jim Thomas
LMFT, ICEEFT EFT Trainer

Jim has worked with couples and families across a wide range of presenting problems, family types, and diverse populations.  As an EFT Trainer, Jim presented on attachment-driven (including EFT) approaches to treating addiction, addressing trauma and working with shame to therapists across 4 continents.

Return to conference speakers page

Attachment-Driven Treatment of Addiction With Couples and Families

Friday | May 2, 2025
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
(1.5 CEs)

Session Description:

Attendees gain an expansive, humanistic, attachment-driven view of addiction.  As a result, their awareness of the impact of addiction on those in their own clinical practice, increases.  Whether this be struggles of an individual client, a substance impacting a couples relationship, or the chaotic tragedies in families impacted by alcoholism and substance abuse, clinicians gain a pathway towards having a transformative impact through their work.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Attendees be able to explain the key differences between three overall organizing implicit assumptions in addiction treatment: attachment-averse, attachment-neutral and attachment-driven approaches to working with addiction.
2. Attendees can identify and describe the three key principles that underlie and inform attachment-driven approaches addressing addiction in couples and family therapy.
3. Attendees will identify and apply three key tools in working with couples and families struggling with addiction’s impact: empathic engagement, humanistic validating support, and emotional-processing.