Separation and Loss
All sessions can be found in full on learn.nctsn.org under “Clinical Training” – “Identifying Critical Moments and Healing Complex Trauma”. These are worth CEU (Continuing Education Units) credit when completed in their entirety.
After watching the video, please take the time to give us feedback on the session. Your feedback will help us shape the new webinars and sessions! If you have any questions or would like a copy of your responses, please email Caitlin Sullivan at caisullivan@uchc.edu.
Helping a Youth Find Safety and Belonging
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
Amid the pandemic, young people have faced increased isolation and disconnection. For Aiden, a youth dealing with mistreatment, ridicule, and exile from peers, community, and family, being isolated at home for months, has become almost unbearable. In this session, Aiden talks with a therapist for the first time, expressing deep feelings of sadness, shame, powerlessness and hopelessness that raise serious concerns about Aiden’s safety for the therapist.
Digital Diaries: Joshua
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
In this webinar, we will meet Joshua, a young adult struggling to find his place in the world, and his therapist Dr. Michael Gomez. Feeling like a “loner” most of his life, Josh has faced many difficulties while growing up. In addition to being abandoned by his mother and lacking a connection with his foster mother, Josh also has had a “love/hate” relationship with his father. In spite of this, he still longs to be part of a family and has been trying to reconnect with his father and his father’s new wife and kids (Josh’s half siblings).
Helping a Young Mother Experiencing Loss Navigate the Challenges of Parenting a Toddler
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
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.
The Intersection Between Multi-Generational Developmental Trauma and Contextual Trauma
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
This session introduces Miguel, a 17-year-old with a history of truancy, fighting, and multiple arrests since the age of 14— around the time his mother passed away from cancer. He lives with his grandmother and siblings and occasionally sees his father, who lives out of state. Recently, during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, Miguel was arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest. His previous therapist of several years has transitioned out, and he is struggling to make a real connection with his new therapist.
Separation, Immigration, and Developmental Trauma in the Lives of Children and Families
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
In this webinar, you will meet Soledad, a 14-year-old girl who has recently been released from her first psychiatric hospitalization after an attempted suicide. Soledad is the oldest of five children. Currently, she lives with two of her siblings in a foster home while her other two younger siblings were sent to a different home. Soledad’s mother was detained by ICE after physically attacking Soledad during what seemed to be a psychotic episode. Soledad is worried about her mother and her two younger siblings, whom she has not seen since they separated. This is Soledad’s first session scheduled by her welfare worker.
A Young Man’s Dilemmas: Loss, Loyalty, and Family Relationships
The Session
The Post Session Interview
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Description
In this webinar, viewers will hear from Dr. Wizdom Powell, an artist, Director of the Health Disparities Institute and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and a Senior Consultant for the Center for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma Disorders, at UConn Health, who has worked to advance health equity for boys and men of color. During this segment, Dr. Powell will describe the impact of chronic exposure to racial and developmental trauma on young Black men and share how intergenerational trauma has affected families and communities of color. She will highlight creative pathways that can be considered to promote healing for boys and men of color who have experienced racial and developmental trauma.
Two Mothers, One Daughter, and an Intergenerational History of Developmental Trauma
The Session
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Description
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.
Rebuilding Connection Between an Estranged Mother and Daughter After a Father’s Traumatic Death
The Session
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Description
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.
Reconnecting a Grieving Teen to Her Community
The Session
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Description
This webinar focuses on the grief experiences of Geri, an adolescent, and her maternal grandmother, Mima, four months after her mother was murdered by her father. In this session, Geri talks about the challenges of attending a new, predominantly white school in her grandmother’s neighborhood where she now lives. She describes the social alienation and the academic challenges of moving in the middle of the school year. Geri and her grandmother also discuss their own grief and loss responses. By the end of the session, Geri and Mima reach an agreement that addresses both Geri’s struggles and her grandmother’s concerns.
Reflections on Engagement with an Immigrant Child-Parent Dyad Recently Reunified
The Session
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Description
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.
Managing Parental Dissociation During a Dyadic Therapy Session: Meeting the Needs of Dysregulated Parent and Child
The Session
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Description
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 for days. During this session Sharon begins to dissociate and the therapist must now find a way to comfort Debbie while supporting Sharon.
Longing to Reconnect with Family: A Teenager and His Father Encounter Their Losses and Fears
The Session
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Description
In this webinar you will meet Joshua, a 15-year-old who has been in and out of DCF care and foster homes his whole life. Recently he was arrested for attempted armed robbery. In this session, the therapist was asked by DCF to work on strengthening the relationship between Joshua and his father to see if he could move in and live with his father’s family in the future.
Guiding Youth Through Loss and Betrayal
The Session
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Description
A client reveals during her first therapy session that she discovered her adoptive mother hid letters from her biological mother. In her past, she was placed in several foster care homes after incidents of physical and sexual abuse and family violence related to drug use by her mother and male partners. Though she was adopted two years ago, finding these hidden letters has escalated her feelings of distrust and not being accepted as a full member of her adoptive family.