In-depth clinical learning on a key area of practice, guided by leading experts.
Event overview:
Substance use and dependency can evoke anxiety, over caution or over simplification in therapy. Drug use often begins as an adaptive response to distress, trauma and disconnection, yet it carries significant risk, harm and clinical responsibility.
This 2 hour clinical webinar offers a nuanced, non reductive exploration of substance use through psychological, relational and neurobiological lenses, equipping you to work with clarity, containment and ethical precision.
We will examine:
- Drug use as regulation, attachment adaptation and trauma response
- Risk, harm and safeguarding responsibilities in clinical practice
- Cycles of dependency, relapse and shame
- How substance use integrates with wider therapeutic work
- Collaboration with specialist and multi disciplinary services
We will also examine why neurodivergent adults are over‑represented in substance use services, and how ADHD‑related impulsivity and trauma histories complicate standard relapse models.
We’ll explore case examples where drugs are used to modulate sensory experience, sleep and emotional volatility in ADHD and autism, and how to work with this without pathologising the person.
Clinical Takeaway
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Confidently assess substance use without collapsing into fear or minimisation
- Recognise relapse as part of a patterned cycle rather than simple failure
- Formulate drug use within trauma and nervous system frameworks
- Work actively with relapse moments inside ongoing therapy
- Know when and how to collaborate with specialist services while maintaining your clinical role
- Hold risk ethically and clearly within your professional responsibility
This webinar forms part of The Addiction Series
The Addiction Series is a five‑part Grove Series CPD course on addiction across porn and sex, alcohol, social media and screens, drugs and work. You can book this event on its own for £30, choose a select few, or purchase all 5 webinars together for £120. (Prices inclusive of VAT).
Dates and Times
All Wednesdays, 17:30–19:30 (UK time)
