Therapeutic Work for Children with Complex Trauma

Nicole Vliegen, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at KU Leuven, Belgium, where she heads the postgraduate training programmes in Psychodynamic Child Psychotherapy and Infant Mental Health. She is a licensed psychodynamic child psychotherapist and heads the team of psychodynamic child psychotherapists at PraxisP, the clinical centre of KU Leuven.Eileen Tang, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in Clinical Psychology at KU Leuven and Professor in Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She is a licensed psychodynamic child psychotherapist and is part of the team at PraxisP.Nick Midgley, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and Professor of Psychological Therapies with Children and Young People at UCL/the Anna Freud Centre, UK. He has edited and co-authored several books, including Mentalization-Based Treatment with Children:A Time-Limited Approach (2017).Patrick Luyten, PhD, is Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium and Director of the PhD in Psychoanalysis Programme at University College London, UK. He heads a treatment service for patients with depression and functional somatic disorders at PraxisP.Peter Fonagy is Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London; Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, UK; Consultant to the Child and Family Programme at Baylor College of Medicine and visiting professor at Yale and Harvard Medical Schools. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from several national and international professional associations.

"This is a text that child therapists have long needed. It brings together understandings which have historically been too separate, of the effects of complex trauma on children, alongside psychodynamic, attachment and developmental science, integrated into a deep but user-friendly and effective way of working not only with the child but also with the significant adults and systems around them. Clinicians, from the most experienced to newer therapists, will breathe a sigh of relief that this is available." - Dr Graham Music, Consultant psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic, Author of Nurturing Children (2019) and Nurturing Natures (2016) "The present volume is much needed as communities around the world face more strife and conflict and complex trauma in children is increasingly common. The authors offer a concise and invaluable integration of clinical theory with insights into how therapists create a safe space to facilitate children’s recovery and growth. In language accessible for students as well as parents, the authors provide a vivid portrait behind the scenes of experienced therapists working with great skill with traumatized children and their families." - Linda Mayes, Arnold Gesell Professor Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. "Child psychotherapists working in the psychodynamic tradition have always worked with children and families struggling with the effects of complex trauma. Yet there has been a lack of an integration of longstanding psychoanalytic clinical experience with contemporary ways of working with trauma emerging from other fields, including neuroscience, developmental psychology and mentalization-based work. Nicole Vliegen and her colleagues have produced an approachable and inspiring practice guide, which will be useful for any child psychotherapist working with traumatised fostered and adopted children. Especially useful is the three-track treatment approach: direct therapy with the child has to be combined with active work with the parents/carers and the wider network for the work to have a lasting impact." - Maria Papadima, PhD, Editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy; Senior Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the NHS Service for Adolescents and Families in Enfield (SAFE)

• INTRODUCTIONPART I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDChapter 1. A contemporary psychodynamic perspective on and approach to complex traumaChapter 2. Complex trauma and profound disruptions in four domains of child developmentChapter 3. Complex trauma and the challenge to mentalizing capacities in parents and the networkPART II. THE THREE-TRACK TREATMENT APPROACHChapter 4. The three-track treatment approach: core features and basic principlesChapter 5. Assessment of ‘child within family’ developmentChapter 6. Direct work with the child Chapter 7. Work with parentsChapter 8. Work with the networkChapter 9. Working towards ending