In this session you will meet Jayda, a young mother who is battling feelings of inadequacy as the parent of a toddler. Jayda is struggling to balance life’s responsibilities while experiencing loss and loneliness following the incarceration of her partner Trevor.

In this webinar, you will meet Penny and her adopted mother, Jan, who are in an emergency session with Dr. Ford. Penny was sent home from school for assaulting another child.

In this webinar, viewers will meet Kate and her daughter, Dani, who are in their first therapy session with Dr. Saltzman. This session takes place one year after the sudden and traumatic loss of Jim, their husband and father. Dr. Saltzman helps both Kate and Dani to express their feelings and concerns and explore how they are dealing differently with their shared loss. As they work through the session, Dr. Saltzman helps Kate and Dani to start finding common ground and developing a plan to move forward.

There is often a story of profound pain and fear behind anger and dysregulated behavior in parent-child relationships. During this session, you will see the modern-day manifestations of the intersection of historical, intergenerational, and migration trauma and its compounding impact with present-day traumatic stressors on the parent-child relationship of an indigenous Guatemalan immigrant family. This webinar depicts significant emotional and relational themes faced by young children who come to the US as unaccompanied minors as well as themes that both the children and their parents face upon reunification. Viewers will also see a framework for engagement where the therapeutic relationship is used as a vehicle for the restoration of safety, co-regulation, protection, and hope in the parent-child relationship. This framework is aimed not only at repairing the child-parent relationship but also at exploring, acknowledging, and including the family’s historical and socio-cultural context in complex trauma treatment.

Debbie is a 10-year-old multiracial girl who lives with her 27 year old African American mother Sharon. Sharon has struggled for years with substance abuse. The family lived for several years in a shared space which was quite chaotic. During this time, Debbie often would be with other children in the building for many hours at a time without adult supervision. Many adults would come in and out of the building, and Debbie often did not see her mother, sometimes, for days. During this session Sharon begins to dissociate and the therapist must now find away to comfort Debbie while supporting Sharon.

In This webinar we meet 11 year Clara. Clara reveals her first sexual abuse experience by her mother’s former live in boyfriend, Michael, and how the abuse progressed. Clara becomes overtly distressed and leaps onto the therapist, embracing him. The therapist gently reestablishes physical boundaries and facilitates her diaphragmatic breathing. The scenario illustrates the complexity of the therapeutic relationship and the balance therapists must achieve for effectively supporting traumatized patients while also maintaining healthy boundaries.

In this webinar you will meet Maya, a 9-year-old girl, was referred for therapy due to numerous instances of domestic violence by her father toward her mother (some of which she witnessed), physical abuse by her father, and possible sexual abuse with no specific disclosures. Maya’s father is currently incarcerated for drug and violence-related crimes. Her mother was unable to consistently take care of Maya for the past few years due to substance abuse issues so Maya was removed from her care. Maya has two failed foster home placements due to significant aggressive and sexualized behavior. She is currently residing in a stable foster home and has begun to have monitored visits with her biological mother who was recently discharged from a drug rehabilitation program. Maya has attended therapy with this therapist for only a short time and recently, has begun to demonstrate more trauma-related play. This session illustrates how dysregulation and trauma processing can be exhibited in play, sometimes with significant distress for the child with developmental trauma. The critical dilemma involves to what extent the therapist helps a highly traumatized child to manage her distress versus engage in trauma processing.

Michael (12-years old) and Trisha (16-years-old) live with their mother Monica in a single-parent household. Five years ago, their father Neil was incarcerated after violently attacking and nearly killing Monica while the children were upstairs in their bedrooms. Michael and Trisha seem resilient, doing well emotionally, in school, and with peers, but Monica developed panic attacks and nightmares. Monica began therapy with Dr. Taylor two years ago, and her PTSD symptoms had largely resolved until she learned a couple of weeks ago that her ex-husband was going to get released from prison within the next month. Monica and Dr. Taylor jointly decided it would be helpful for the children to learn of their father’s imminent release in a family session with Dr. Taylor, the children’s first meeting with Dr. Taylor.