We are beginning to flesh out the story that Janet began telling some time ago: that Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), as we now understand it, like many other disorders, emerges from disruptions in interpersonal regulation and integration. For all of us, the development of basic capacities—for rest and regulation; playful, lively, and loving connection to self and others; speaking and moving with safety, comfort, delight, flow, and grace; and internal and external coordination and collaboration—depends on “good enough” early care, followed by ongoing maintenance and restoration. Even when these capacities are established, they and our consciousness can falter under the impact of covert or overt loss, trauma, or overwhelming stress.

To re-establish rhythms, connections, and coordination, we must follow the threads of experience and memory, engaging in shared work of weaving, darning, repairing, and growing integration together. We are searching for rehabilitation—in its original sense, from habere, “to hold”—and for ways of coming home (ngurra) to ourselves and to one another. The layered connections within and between us are what support this work.

This webinar will explore a number of these threads and layers, tracing and weaving them to support new connections. We will consider attachment organisation and disorganisation, drawing on markers from the Adult Attachment Interview, Communicative Musicality, dyadic indicators from the CARE-Index, and contemporary approaches to embodiment. These ideas will be grounded in clinical vignettes, transcripts, and research from collaborative WPP studies with people experiencing Functional Neurological Disorder and complex trauma.

The Conversational Model provides a strong and secure base for this work. It emerges from an integrative dialogue between developmental psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, psychodynamic theory, and common-factors practice, and adopts an open, evolving theoretical stance. Throughout, we will also weave in a fundamental gift from Indigenous Australian knowledge systems: attention to the mother–child connection—Yothu Yindi in Yolŋu, and nganajungu yagu – nganajungu mayu in Wajarri (a Yamatji language from Western Australia)—as part of a Bothways approach to healing.

So much of what we need, do, and long for rests in a heartfelt, layered, and woven presence with one another—painfully absent when missing, and profoundly restorative when offered. A little poetry and music will also accompany this human conversation of healing, song, and dance.

Venue: Live Webinar (Zoom registration required. Please check your booking confirmation email).

Date: Wednesday, 1st April, 2026 

Time: 19.00 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. (Sydney/Melbourne/Canberra Time)

Cost: Free (Live Webinar Only)

$19 (Live Webinar &/or Access to Recording for 90 days)

CPD Certificate: 1.5 Hours. CPD certificates are issued to attendees who meet one of the following criteria: attend the live webinar with at least 80% attendance, or watch the webinar recording and complete the associated assessment component.

About Prof Loyola McLean: Prof Loyola McLean is a Consultation-Liaison Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist in public, private and academic practice, with clinical, teaching and research interests in the relational bodymind interface, attachment, trauma, psychotherapy and integrated trauma-informed care (TIC). In this space she has been researching a developmental relational and neuroscience approach to FND for some time. Her Adult Attachment Interview Coder and Trainer experience influences her work, where she has led the adoption of the AAI in health research, using both qualitative and discourse coding and exploring biometric markers. She is also shaped by her family’s Stolen and Hidden story, her lived experience as a carer and having disability, and a child of parents with mental illness. She identifies as an Aboriginal Celtic Australian and a Yamatji woman, living on Gadigal Land and working on Gadigal and Dharug land. She works in the Westmead Psychotherapy Program for Complex Traumatic Disorders, co-designing and delivering the online Masters of Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy in the Conversational Model, and with the Formal Education Course (FEC) for Psychiatry trainees at The University of Sydney, called the Psychiatry Trainees Education Course. She considers connection, conversation, collaboration and creativity, including a musical sensibility, as essential in our healing work, supported by deep listening - Nganggurnmanha (Wajarri) - Listening, hearing, thinking, remembering – as we walk home, together: nganhu wanarayimanha nurragi.

About eiseEducation: eiseEducation is a global leader in professional development for psychotherapists and mental health practitioners. We offer expert-led webinars, short courses, and training programs designed to deepen clinical skills and support evidence-based practice. With roots in Australia and New Zealand and an expanding global audience, eiseEducation is committed to empowering those who support mental health and emotional well-being around the world. Discover more at eiseEducation.com

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