Bert Powell Circle of Security Webinar Recording

Bert has committed his career as a clinician and teacher to learning how people struggle and succeed at negotiating emotional security in their lives. He began his clinical work as an outpatient family therapist in a community mental health centre in 1974 providing treatment for high-risk families. As a family therapist he learned the key to intervention was not just change in behaviour but change in the quality of intimate relationships.

Seeing behavioural problems as relationship struggles has been an organising principle for Bert as he pursued extensive training and supervision throughout his career. He was trained in family therapy through the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and earned certification in psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the Masterson Institute of New York. Bert’s exploration of the clinical applications of attachment theory led him to long-term consultation to Spokane’s Public School’s Behavioural Intervention Program and to the Martin Luther King Center where he trained and supported staff to meet the needs of at-risk youth and families.

Bert is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Counseling Psychology at Gonzaga University and an International Advisor to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Attachment and Human Development. In Washington State Bert and his colleagues have been recognised for their work in the Circle of Security with the Governor’s Child Abuse Prevention Award, the Community Service Award by the SPO-CAN Counsel for the Prevention of Child Abuse, and the Department of Health and Human Services Regional Award of Honor for contribution to Head Start children and families.