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Trauma and mental health: what works
Published in Panos Vostanis, Helping Children and Young People Who Experience Trauma, 2021
Attachment-focused psychotherapy is increasingly available for children who experienced trauma, by placing and trying to understand and resolve a conflict in the context of relationships, usually with the primary caregiver. This person could be the birth, adoptive or foster carer, and is involved in some or all the sessions of approaches such as child–parent psychotherapy or ‘theraplay’. These aim to enhance the caregiver’s reflective capacity in understanding, recognising and sensitively responding to children’s signals, while relating to their own experiences and feelings. Alternatively, they could be confined to the therapist and the child, such as in dyadic developmental psychotherapy, which aims to internalise relationships and co-regulate emotions, thus gradually changing the child’s internal representations. Several applications and techniques will be discussed in later chapters.
Foster care youth and the development of autonomy
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2020
Mental health providers can facilitate the development of strong attachments and autonomy using a variety of techniques. For young children, therapies such as Parent–Child Interaction Therapy and Circle of Security both work within attachment theory to improve attachments (Allen, 2011; Wilson, 2009). Emotional coaching, providing reflective dialogue (reflecting on how youth are feeling and why), offering frequent touch, and providing a safe relationship (as in Trust-Based Relational Intervention and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) are techniques that can also promote improved attachment (Gardenhire, Schleiden, & Brown, 2019). Providers can also teach emotion regulation skills to these youth. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy includes emotion regulation skills training and validation techniques that can target attachment and emotion regulation deficits in youth in foster care (Andrew, Williams, & Waters, 2014). Motivational interviewing techniques are a tool that providers can use to help youth form long-term goals as well as the concrete steps necessary to reach these goals. This therapy walks youth through the process of defining the youth’s core values, formulating goals that are consistent with these values, developing strategies necessary for achieving these goals, and problem-solving when youth do not follow through with their plans to move towards these goals (Hall & Morrow, 2018). Though no data exist on utilising the aforementioned therapies for youth in foster care they hold promise as tools to facilitate the development of autonomy in these youth.