Session Description
In working with both the whole child and the systems within which they exist and navigate, this class will explore the initial foundations of stabilization work with complexly traumatized children. After establishing a frame, the first phase of treatment with children and adolescents focuses on safety and stabilization. Tasks in this phase include the establishment of a therapeutic alliance with both caregivers and young clients, providing developmentally appropriate psychoeducation as treatment begins, mapping internal states, and striving to better understand the unique motivations behind sustained dissociative symptoms and features in children. This includes a focus on (re)building child and family specific safety, emotional literacy, co-regulatory skills via affect regulation and modulation, somatic considerations, and the (re)development of trust and attachment across internal affective states and with external safe caregiving systems. Time will be given to discuss case material as it relates to the readings.

Readings

1. Silberg, J. (2021). Introducing the EDUCATE MODEL. In The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation (pp.77-96). Routledge.
2. Silberg, J. (2021). Befriending the Body: Somatic considerations for the child survivor. In The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation (pp.139-158). Routledge.
3. Silberg, J. (2021). Building attachment across states: Affect regulation in the context of relationships In The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation (pp.183-204). Routledge.
4. Forner, C. (2019). Mindful attachment: An organic way to work with children who have been through complex trauma and neglect. Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation, 3(1), 91-106.
5. Gilson, M. L., & Abela, A. (2021). The Therapeutic Alliance with Parents and their Children Working Through a Relational Trauma in the Family. Contemporary family therapy, 43(4), 343–358.
6. Shewfelt, M. (2018). The Relationship is the therapy: Applying interpersonal neurobiology in psychotherapy. The Neuropsychotherapist, 6(12), 62-71.

Timed Outline
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 1– Organizing dissociation focused treatment with children
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 2 & 3– Building safety and attachment across states via affect regulation, modulation, and befriending the body
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 5 – Building the therapeutic alliance with caregiving systems
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 4 & 6 – Mindful attachment, the therapeutic relationship, and interpersonal neurobiology
30 minutes: Discussion of case study and case materials applying the above readings to disguised cases