Attachment Through the Lifespan Series:

Resparking: Working with the challenge of energyless patients

presented by:
The Parent – Infant Mental Health Project
In association with
Canadian Association of Psychoanalytic Child Therapists
and
Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Graham Music, PhD
Consultant Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic London

In this talk Graham Music will introduce ways of understanding and working with more shut-down states. He will first introduce some key concepts such as ‘spark’ energy, nervous system whispering, and the embodied countertransference. He will then address the profound effects of emotional neglect and the kind of lifelessness that can arise from this. Next, he will look at numbing after trauma, which can seem similar in terms of lifelessness to neglect, but have different aetiology and require different therapeutic techniques. This material will be brought together with clinical examples. New science combined with psychoanalytic understandings will suggest what can help shift people from ‘desparked’, lifeless, unenergised states to more hopeful and joyous states. The talk will include video clips, slides, and discussions.

Graham Music is a psychotherapist, trainer, author and supervisor. He is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre where he has worked for over 20 years, and he has been adult Psychotherapist for about 35 years. Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department, he has developed many innovative programs, including setting up services in over 40 schools and a range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment and neglect. His clinical specialty for decades been understanding and working with trauma. He supervises and teaches nationally and internationally and has a particular interest in linking cutting-edge developmental findings with therapeutic practice. His publications include Nurturing Natures: (2023, 2016, 2010), Respark: Igniting Hope and Joy after trauma and depression, (2022), Affect and Emotion (2022, 2001), Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Hope (2019), The Good Life (2014), as well as co-editing From Trauma to Harming Others (2022). His most recent publication is Womb Life: Wonders and Challenges of Pregnancy, the Foetus’ Journey and Birth (2024).