desperately seeking attachment: how trauma & neglect disrupt attachment...
TRANSCRIPT
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Center for Adoption Support & Education welcomes you to
Strengthening Your Familyan empowering and inspiring webinar series
Desperately Seeking Attachment:How Trauma & Neglect Disrupt
Attachment (part 2)
Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT
Kinship Centera Member of Seneca Family of Agencies
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Jockey Being Family®
Jockey Being Family generously funds our monthly
Strengthening Your Family webinar series.
Who is Jockey Being Family?
Jockey International is a manufacturer, distributor and retailer of underwear
and sleepwear for men, women, and children and is active in more than 120
countries. Jockey® created Jockey Being Family, a foundation that helps
adoptive families remain strong and stay together-forever because Jockey
believes that even one failed adoption is too many. To learn more about
Jockey Being Family, please visit www.jockeybeingfamily.com
Jockey International’s C.E.O., Debra Waller, was adopted herself as an infant.
“Jockey Being Family is about bringing people together and it is
exhilarating to have impacted the lives of so many families. We set out
to strengthen adoptive families but we here at Jockey have also been
equally touched by this program, the families, and their stories.”
-Debra S. Waller
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• Pre- and post-adoption counseling, assessment and therapeutic services
• Individual and group therapy for kids, teens and adults
• Crisis intervention, support and assistance with school issues
• Training, education & interactive workshops – for families, educators and professionals
• Nationally recognized post-adoption models
• TAC: Training for Adoption Competency
• Our newest Game: 52 Ways to Talk about Adoption
• Award-winning print publications, articles, newsletters and online resources
Center for Adoption
Support and Education, Inc.
For more information, visit
www.adoptionsupport.org
a non-profit adoptive family support center, since 1998
With decades of experience, our mission is to strengthen the
well-being of children and families of all adoptive experiences
by providing them the adoption-centered services and
resources they need, including:
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Desperately Seeking Attachment:
How Trauma & Neglect Disrupt
Attachment
(part 2)
April 16, 2015
Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT
Kinship Centera Member of Seneca Family of Agencies
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Objectives:
Identify Attachment Theory, types of attachment patterns and how a
crisis in the attachment relationship is an opportunity for change and healing
Describe how attachment-deflecting behaviors serve as a protective
mechanism for a child not rooted in permanency
Identify the key clinical constructs of permanency focused, attachment-
based services across Systems of Care
Practice utilizing a developmental lens to focus treatment on needs, not pathology
Describe how family systems attachment therapy empowers the family system
to become the healing mechanism for the child
Identify the 10 Things Your Child Needs Everyday to feel valued,
connected and empowered
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Objectives:
Learn and Identify the 7 Core Issues in Permanence/Adoption
Describe how systemic trauma occurs and its impact on the
developing child and the family system
Describe 5 attachment deflecting behaviors and 5 attachment
facilitating behaviors
Describe Developmental Trauma Disorder as a way of understanding
the complex challenges faced by both children and caregivers.
Understand the difference between traditional parenting techniques which
utilize loss, punishment and emotional distance in response to negative
behaviors vs therapeutic and attachment-based parenting approaches based
on principals of addition and teaching consequences.
Understand the role of the professional as secure base to the family system
with the ultimate goal of strengthening all aspects of the systems functioning
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The Foundation:
Attachment Theory, Development & Trauma
Every interpersonal skill that is required in order for us
to be successful in creating and sustaining relationships
– must be LEARNED
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Seven Core Issues Wheel
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Attachment, Development & the Brain
The parent/caregiver is the external psycho-biological
regulator of the infant/child’s internal affective states
The two primary tasks are:
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The Attachment Dilemma
Our children often end up in a constant power struggle
with their primary caregivers because . . .
. . . the thing they need most
- is also the thing they fear the most.
Fear will keep me from getting close to you!
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‘Helpers’ who both understand and empathize with the uniqueneeds and challenges that adoption built families experience
Adoptive Families in Crisis Need:
Specialized therapeutic support from adoption competent clinicians who utilize a family systems orientation and have a depth of knowledge in adoption, attachment and trauma
They need their peeps! As a non-traditional family; the culture doesnot mirror or meet their needs. To avoid isolation and the typicalpitfalls that can occur when parenting a child/youth with a historyof trauma and disrupted attachments . . . a network of adoptivefamilies who can both mentor and support
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Learning a new dance . . .
the complexity of the children/families we serve
utilizing a developmental lens
repairing disrupted attachments
attachment-facilitating behaviors
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Complexity of Children
We Serve
The
Child
Multiple
Traumas
in Birth
Family
Violence
Poverty
Multiple
Moves &
Separations
Genetic
Issues
Further
Traumas
Along the
Way
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Repairing Disrupted Attachments
Many problems of traumatized children can be understood as efforts to minimize
objective threat and to regulate their emotional distress. This is critical for new
caregivers to understand – as the child can be ‘viewed’ as oppositional and difficult
Why does it appear that the child provokes and/or elicits the negative in others?
The child has learned to expect distress, hostility, isolation and negativity – the child
non-consciously (right hemisphere) scans his environment for cues that support his
learned ‘internalized core belief system’ – that he/she is not safe, that caregivers are
not responsive/sensitive to his/her needs, and that the world is a scary and
dangerous place.
What was once input into the RH (fear, terror, chaos, distress) is now output – as the
‘biological system’ has been wired to be ‘stress reactive/responsive’
Misdiagnoses and Diagnoses – Developmental Trauma Disorder
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Developmental Trauma Disorder
Developmental Trauma DisorderA new, rational diagnoses for children with complex trauma histories
- Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD
Most trauma begins at home; the vast majority of people (80 %)
responsible for child maltreatment are children’s own parents
People w/ childhood histories of trauma, abuse and neglect make up
almost the entire criminal justice population in the US.
When trauma emanates from within the family, children experience a
crisis of loyalty and organize their behavior to survive within
their families (fright/terror with no solution)
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Current parenting styles used in our culture are
based on the child having a ‘secure attachment’ -
these approaches ‘threaten the attachment’ using
punishment and/or emotional distance as a
consequence for ‘bad behavior’
These interventions are highly ineffective with children
who have suffered neglect, abuse and/or multiple
changes in caregivers.
PUNISHMENT = to inflict pain or harm
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CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
The primary method of early learning is imitation.
Children imitate what they see, what they hear,
and what they experience. They typically do not
do what they are told to do, but rather, do what
they are shown to do.
Who should lead the emotional dance?
Parents with increased ‘Emotional Intelligence’
use their affect to 1) attune with 2) down
regulate and 3) up stimulate/pleasure
. . . their child
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Attachment-Based Parenting
1) Prioritizes the parent/child relationship – nothing is more
important than the attachment relationship!
2) Based on principals of ‘addition’ – what is the parent
actively teaching?
3) Focuses on the child’s strengths – the parent
accentuates the positives
(what is the positive vs negative feedback ratio?)
4) Emotional connectedness is used to assist the
child in learning from their mistakes
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Attachment-Based Parenting
5) Mistakes are encouraged and welcomed as
opportunities to learn
6) Teaching consequences are experiential –
children learn from doing
7) Structure in the home is maximized – parents
have authority over all privileges, and all privileges
are earned via pro-social behaviors (parents are
careful not to reward maladaptive behavior)
8) The Parent leads the emotional dance (down-
regulating and/or up-stimulating)
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Child Development
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Filling Your Child’s Buckets
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Attachment-facilitating behaviors
primary attachment relationships are NOT interchangeable
buckets don’t fill when I’m stuck in fear/distress and survival mode
I need to know that I am valuable enough for you to stay in my life.
I need adults that will commit to staying connected to me (a ring!)
find and accentuate my strengths - because I don’t see them!
I need you to understand that I will easily ‘rupture’ our relationship
because I don’t know what permanence feels like (I don’t have roots)
when I ‘rupture’ – you ‘repair’!! I need a lot of practice in order
to learn a new way of dancing (being in the world)
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My words tell you what I want . . .
my affect and behavior tell you what I need!
The Ten Things I Need Everyday
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The Dance of Permanence . . .
the clinical constructs; based on principals of
addition (not subtraction/loss/punishment
attachment-based parenting; strength based and
parent-led
post adoption supportive services that are family
systems oriented and adoption competent
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Traditional Therapy vs. Family
Attachment Therapy
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Have we REALLY tried everything?
Are we REALLY thinking outside of the box?
Who’s box are we thinking outside of?
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. . . in closing
The heart of a child is a scroll,
A page that is lovely and white,
And to it as fleeting years roll,
Come hands with a story to write.
Be ever so careful, O hand;
Write thou with a sanctified pen;
Thy story shall live in the land
For years, in the doings of men.
It shall echo in the circles of light,
Or lead to the death of a soul.
Give here but a message right,
For the heart of a child is a scroll.
-Author unknown
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Suggested Readings:
The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy by Cozolino
Parenting From the Inside Out by Siegel and Hartzell
The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: AttachmentAnd the Developing Social Brain by Cozolino
Becoming Attached by Robert Karen
The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love & Healing
by Bruce Perry
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For Parents/Caregivers:
Parenting From the Inside Out by Siegel and Hartzell
Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence
by Karr-Morse and Wiley
Emotional Intelligence by Goleman
I Love You Rituals by Bailey
Playful Parenting by Chen
How To Raise a Child With a High EQ by Shapiro
The Connected Child by Purvis, Cross and Sunshine
READ WITH YOUR CHILD
If I Were The Wind by Lezlie Evans
You Are My I Love You by Maryann Cusimano
The Invisible String by Patrice Karst
I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt
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“Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness
. . . until it flowers again from within.”
- Galway Kinnell
Thank You
www.kinshipcenter.org
www.senecafoa.org
Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT
(714) 881 8635
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Certificates of Attendance
Email your request to
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For information on our monthly “Strengthening Your Family” webinar series, please visit
adoptionsupport.org/strengtheningyourfamily
Registration is FREE for first 300 registrants thanks to a generous grant from Jockey Being Family!
The codes will be available on the last Tuesday of each month.
---------------------------------------------
For a schedule of our pre-recorded webinars on our most requested topics, please visit
adoptionsupport.org/indemand