Daniel A. Hughes – Attachment Focused Therapy: Trauma Related Disorders in Children & Adolescents

Attachment Focused Therapy: Trauma Related Disorders in Children & Adolescents – Daniel A. Hughes

• Cutting-edge interventions for treatment resistant children and adolescents
• Innovative strategies you can use with parents and caregivers of traumatized and attachment disordered children
• Video treatment sessions, role play and hand-outs

Join renowned author, international speaker and leading attachment therapist, Dr. Daniel Hughes, as he presents the crucial role of a secure attachment in a child’s neurological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development. Dr. Hughes is widely-known for creating the PACE model, an approach characterized by playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. This model has been praised by experts world-wide as a successful treatment model to help children develop secure attachment style.

Dr. Hughes will give you the tools you need to provide treatment for severely traumatized youth that is both experiential and reflective. This seminar will focus on specific interventions of attachment-focused therapy for youth who may be treatment resistant, withdrawn, or aggressive. Principles and strategies of psychotherapy and parenting which utilize attachment and the role of intersubjectivity will be presented and discussed. You will also learn how to work with their parents and families to facilitate positive treatment outcomes. Dr. Hughes will use videos of treatment sessions, role play and handouts to demonstrate how you can use these techniques in your practice immediately.

• Describe the symptoms, causes and effects of secure and insecure attachment.
• Summarize how to foster safety for the child so they can face or resolve past trauma.
• Identify the three components of intersubjectivity and their treatment implications.
• Describe the PACE method and how it is used in the treatment of traumatized or attachment disordered youth.
• Show demonstration of attachment-focused individual and/or family treatment.
• Recognize specialized attachment-focused individual and family interventions for resistance, aggression, dissociation and other challenges.

Assessment of Secure and Insecure Attachment

• DSM-5® changes for attachment disorder and trauma related disorders
• Attachment security
• Intersubjectivity: attunement, joint attention and intention
• Developmental effects
• Emotion regulation
• Multiple symptoms of trauma and disorganized attachment

Trauma and Attachment Treatment

• Intersubjective presence
• Foster safety for child
• PACE Method:
  • Playfulness
  • Acceptance
  • Curiosity
  • Empathy
• Shame vs. Guilt
• Treatment goals
• Parents & caregivers
  • Reciprocal experiences
  • Working with the family
• Case examples
• Video of treatment session

Child Focused Interventions

• Therapist as attachment figure for parents
• Focus underneath the symptoms
• Storytelling
• Nondirective/directive
• Affective & reflective dialogue
• Speaking for & speaking about
• Nonverbal & verbal communication
• Interactive repair
• Treatment resistance strategies
• Aggression, withdrawal, distractions, dissociation
• Video of treatment sessions

Family Focused Interventions

• Explore the parents’ attachment histories
• Parent-child communication: guided and experiential
• Relationship repair
• Day to day parenting