Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:00:06.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mitigating Intergenerational Trauma Within the Parent-Child Attachment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2012

Jai Friend
Jai Friend*
Affiliation:
CAMHS Hobart
*
Address for correspondence: jai.friend@dhhs.tas.gov.au
Get access

Abstract

Nine-year-old Ben was said to hate women. His mother was terrified he'd ‘grow up a woman basher’. This paper describes the work done with Ben and his family at the Hobart Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. We drew predominantly on three therapeutic modalities: Theraplay, Family Attachment Narrative Therapy and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. Our work enabled Ben's mother to navigate the aftermath of her own trauma history in order to heal Ben's attachment trauma.

Keywords

attachmentintergenerational traumafamily therapy
Type
Articles
Information
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 114 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1979). Infant-Mother Attachment. American Psychologist, 34 (10): 932–937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.), Washington DC.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Volume I, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Volume II, Middlesex: Penguin.Google Scholar
Becker-Weidman, A. (2005). Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy: The theory, in Becker-Weidman, A. & Shell, D. (Eds.), Creating capacity for attachment: Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy in the treatment of trauma disorders, Oklahoma City: Wood N Barnes.Google Scholar
Cozolino, L. (2002). The neuroscience of psychotherapy: Building and rebuilding the human brain, New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science, New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Fonagy, P., Steele, H., Moran, G. S., Steele, M., & Higgit, A. (1991). The capacity for understanding mental states: The reflective self in parent and child and its significance for the security of attachment, Infant Mental Health Journal, 12 (3): 200–217.3.0.CO;2-7>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, E. (1999). The adult attachment interview: Historical and current perspectives, in Cassidy, J. & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Hesse, E., & Main, M. (2006). Frightened, threatening, and dissociative parental behavior: Theory and associations with parental adult attachment interview status and infant disorganization, Development and Psychopathology, 18, 309–343.Google Scholar
Hughes, D. A. (1997). Facilitating developmental attachment: The road to emotional recovery and behavioural change in foster and adopted children, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hughes, D. A. (2005). An attachment-focused treatment for foster and adoptive families, British Psychological Society Service and Practice Update, 4 (4): 26–28.Google Scholar
Hughes, D. A. (2007). Attachment-focused family therapy, New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Jernberg, A. M., & Booth, P. B. (2001). Theraplay: Helping parents and children build better relationships through attachment-based play, San Francisco: Jossey Bass.Google Scholar
Lacher, D., Nichols, T., & May, J. (2005). Connecting with kids through stories: Using narratives to facilitate attachment in adopted children, London: Jessica Kingsley.Google Scholar
Lender, D. (2006). What's behind these Theraplay activities: A window into attachment, Theraplay Institute Newsletter, Summer 2006, http:/www.theraplay.org/articles/06_sum_Lender.pdfGoogle Scholar
Lyons-Ruth, K., & Jacobvitz, D. (1999). Attachment disorganization: Unresolved loss, relational violence, and lapses in behavioural and attentional strategies. In Cassidy, J. & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: theory, research and clinical applications, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Main, M., & Cassidy, J. (1988). Categories of response to reunion with the parent at age 6: Predictable from infant attachment classifications and stable over a 1 month period, Developmental Psychology, 24 (3): 415–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marvin, R., Cooper, G., Hoffman, K., & Powell, B. (2002). The circle of security project: Attachment-based intervention with caregiver-preschool child dyads, Attachment & Human Development, 4 (1): 107–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, J. C. (2005). Family attachment narrative therapy: Healing the experience of early childhood maltreatment, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 31 (3): 221–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perry, B. D. (2009). Examining child maltreatment through a neurodevelopmental lens: Clinical applications of the neurosequential model of therapeutics, Journal of Loss and Trauma, 14, 240–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, B. D., Pollard, R. A., Blakley, T. L., Baker, W. L., & Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood trauma, the neurobiology of adaptation, and use-dependent development of the brain: How states become traits, Infant Mental Health Journal, 16 (4): 271–291.3.0.CO;2-B>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The Boy who was raised as a dog: and other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook: What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love and healing, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Porges, S. W. (2003). Social engagement and attachment: a phylogenetic perspective, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1008, 31–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schore, A. N. (2001a). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation and infant mental health, Infant Mental Health Journal, 22 (1–2): 7–66.3.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schore, A. N. (2001b). The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health, Infant Mental Health Journal, 22 (1–2): 201–269.3.0.CO;2-9>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, D. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A. (2000). Early relationships and the development of children, Infant Mental Health Journal, 21 (1–2): 67–74.3.0.CO;2-2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: A prospective longitudinal study from birth to adulthood, Attachment & Human Development, 7 (4): 349–367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory and clinical applications, The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42 (1): 3–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder: A new rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories, Psychiatric Annals, 35 (5): 401–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeanah, C. H., & Boris, N. W. (2000). Disturbances and disorders of attachment in early childhood, in Zeanah, C. H. (Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health (2nd ed.), New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Zilberstein, K., & Messer, E. A. (2010). Building a secure base: treatment of a child with disorganised attachment, Clinical Social Work Journal, 38, 85–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar