JOIN US ONLINE for a special scheduled class offering*
Neufeld’s Model of Attachment
Course Start Date: October 1, 2026
Thursdays 9:30 AM PT (6:30 PM CET)
Runs for 5 weeks
This course unfolds Neufeld's ground-breaking model of attachment — the result of decades of synthesis, inspired by the physical and natural sciences, and built upon the most recent understandings of the brain, emotion, and development. In distilling the drive for togetherness to its essence, it expands into a comprehensive model that applies universally to every human arena where relationship exists or should exist.
* although students can take this course anytime on their own, this is a special opportunity to benefit from a guided learning experience with Neufeld Institute Faculty. Former and current registrants in this course can enrol in this class for $50 CAD.
Scheduled Class Details:
📌 Course Start Date: October 1, 2026
⌛ Duration: 5 weeks
🗓️ Thursdays:
Thursdays 9:30 AM PT (6:30 PM CET)
🏷️ Tuition: $150 CAD per person
We invite your participation in this Scheduled Class offering of Neufeld’s Model of Attachment where you will gain further insight from Neufeld Institute Faculty members Eva de Gosztonyi and Urška Žugelj who will offer a rich tapestry of unique perspectives, all within the attachment-based developmental approach.
Scheduled Classes combine Dr. Neufeld’s video lectures and supplementary course material with live faculty-facilitated support sessions. These interactive weekly classes are designed to deepen your understanding of Dr. Neufeld's teachings. It is a unique opportunity to join our experienced faculty and other students online to ask questions, discuss key insights, and explore practical applications.
All of the classes are recorded. If you miss a class, you can keep pace with the group by viewing the recordings at your own convenience during the week.
Please note: you will receive access to the course one week prior to the start date. There will be a little preparation to do before the first class.
Meet our experienced faculty members, who will support you in this course
Eva de Gosztonyi
School Psychologist
Toronto, Canada
Eva's vast experience working with troubled students has put her in good stead for making sense of the challenges and priorities in parenting and working with youngsters, whether at home or in an institutional setting.
Dr. Urška Žugelj
Professor & Psychologist - Director of our Adriatic Region Languages Program
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Urška bridges the worlds of academia, therapy, and parenthood. Being fluently multilingual and having lived in a number of cities in the Adriatic/Balkan region, she is well-suited to bring Neufeld's attachment-based developmental approach to parents and professionals and a mother of four.
COURSE SUMMARY
Reaching deep into the physical and natural sciences, Dr. Neufeld's breakthrough model of attachment is inspired by two of the most powerful illustrations of attachment in the natural world — the atom and the plant — and built upon a solid conceptual foundation provided by current understandings of the brain, emotion, and development. Once attachment is distilled to the essence, a comprehensive model unfolds to capture all the dynamics and nuances of the drive for togetherness as applied to the human experience. Neufeld's model offers a refreshing alternative to more restricted typology models of attachment as well as to the prevailing non-attachment models of learning and disorder. What is surprising is how easy Neufeld's model of attachment is to use, both for making sense of ourselves and others, as well as for guiding effective interaction.
Attachment has always been our primary drive as well as the primary context for living, but like any context, it is seldom put into the kind of words that can generate insight and interaction. As science continues to confirm over and over again, there is no more important factor in parenting, teaching, or treatment than relationship. Dr. Neufeld's model of attachment brings what was previously only in our instinctive unconscious or stored as cultural wisdom, into the forefront of our consciousness, where we can harness its phenomenal power to fulfill our responsibilities. The time for a consciousness of attachment is now, and this course promises to bring the best of the science of relationship to those who should be in the know.
Models of human behaviour are evaluated not only upon a lack of conflicting evidence, but also upon their power to explain and predict, and the clarity of implications for practice. This model has received high praise on all accounts. The implications for implementation are certainly clear and, in many cases, surprisingly opposite to current practice. In addition, this model of attachment sheds light on various dynamics and phenomena that have puzzled experts for years.
SUITABILITY/APPLICABILITY
These insights and resulting practices are applicable to every venue — home, school, and treatment — and every age group, from infancy through old age. As always, Dr. Neufeld focuses on how problems develop in childhood and adolescence as a way of creating a foundation for healing and treatment throughout the lifespan. Although the course is addressed primarily to helping professionals and educators, the material is very helpful to parents as well as for self-understanding and healing.
SAMPLE TOPICS
- how the capacity for relationship is developed and what can go wrong
- the stress response as viewed through the lens of attachment
- the profound emotional impact of threats to togetherness
- the fundamental role of attachment in anxiety and aggression
- how attachment becomes sexualized and what can go wrong
- the instincts of counterwill and shyness as serving attachment
- how the quest for sameness is a derivative of attachment
- how the quest for significance is a derivative of attachment
- the phenomenon of peer orientation and its impact
- how social media is a derivative of attachment
- how attachment becomes depersonalized into fixes and fixations
- how bullying can result from alpha attachment instincts gone awry
- the role of defensive detachment and shyness in reactive attachment disorder
COURSE OUTLINE
The course is structured into four sessions, with each session including approximately an hour and 15 minutes of instructional video by Dr. Neufeld.
- Session 1 — The WORK of Attachment
There is no way of truly making sense of attachment — and what can go wrong — without having a sense of its purpose in our lives. In this session, we uncover the foundational role of attachment in survival, in caring, in stress, and in the spontaneous unfolding of human potential. - Session 2 — The NATURE of Attachment
There are three basic properties of attachment that must be understood to truly make sense of human behaviour: its developmental nature, its hierarchical nature, and its polarized nature. - Session 3 — The POWER of Attachment
Attachment is the most powerful force in the universe. This is obvious when thinking of the physical forces of attachment: gravity, fusion, and magnetism. This is less obvious when invisible in human relationships, but no less true, for better or for worse. - Session 4 — The INSTRUMENTS of Attachment
A viable model of attachment should not only provide insight into ourselves and others, but also have clear implications for implementation and practice.
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Charity & Non-Profit Status
The Neufeld Institute is a registered Canadian charitable organization under the name Neufeld Institute Foundation and is also registered as a NPO in British Columbia. If you would like to make a contribution to us, please go to our donation page.
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