Symposium Themes and Issues

There are several themes and issues that will inform our work during the Symposium. We have formulated these as questions for reflection and guidance.

•  Why do Attachment relationships matter, and for whom?
• What are the conditions and consequences of Secure and Insecure Attachments?
• What is the importance of unwanted separation and loss to our emotional health and well being?
• How do we address the emotional aftermath of loss?

What gets in the way of our supporting Attachment relationships in communities?

• Lack of understanding?
• Lack of knowledge of Attachment-sensitive interventions?
• Personal experiences of our own?

• How can we demonstrate the importance of Attachments in enabling social change?
• What inhibits institutional change? What makes change possible?
• How can we think differently about our decisions regarding the needs of children? Young adults? Older adults?

More particularly, How can we attend to the family's attachment needs in divorce?

• How can we facilitate cooperative parenting in broken families? What are the options available in foster care?
• How does the unsupervised child put communities at risk?
• What are the personal sources of public violence? What might we do toward violence prevention?
• How do political crises create personal suffering? What kinds of losses are sustained by people seeking asylum and refuge?
• How visible and understood, are the Attachment needs of adults of all ages?
• How do we enable change? What are there Attachment-sensitive tools that we can use?
• What are there conflicts between, what people need and what our institutions require of us?