Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Lieberman and Van Horn present a well-reasoned, well-integrated, admirably stated scholarly review of the various literatures on attachment research, child psychoanalysis, and developmental neurobiology....This is a well-narrated, sumptuous book which provides chicken soup for the clinicians' soul. It reconnects seasoned clinicians with their idealistic roots. It reinforces the fretful novice with its infectious aroma of optimism. Thus, it is a must read for clinicians, foster care workers, protective service workers, teachers, and all pediatric professionals who believe that the internal, unarticulated enactments emitted from the very young must have a meaning that through patient, thoughtful work can be understood, formulated into a captivating narrative and worked into a meaningful, transformative treatment plan."--The National Psychologist
Review
"An essential book for those who work with traumatized young children and their families."--PsycCRITIQUES
Synopsis
This eloquent book presents an empirically supported treatment that engages parents as the most powerful agents of their young children's healthy development. Child–parent psychotherapy promotes the child's emotional health and builds the parent's capacity to nurture and protect, particularly when stress and trauma have disrupted the quality of the parent–child relationship. The book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework together with practical strategies for combining play, developmental guidance, trauma-focused interventions, and concrete assistance with problems of living. Filled with evocative, "how-to-do-it" examples, it is grounded in extensive clinical experience and important research on early development, attachment, neurobiology, and trauma.
About the Author
Alicia F. Lieberman, PhD, is Irving B. Harris Professor of Infant Mental Health and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, and is Director of the Child Trauma Research Project at San Francisco General Hospital. She directs the Early Trauma Treatment Network, a collaborative of four university-based programs that is a center of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Child Traumatic Stress Network. She is president of the board of directors of Zero to Three: The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. Dr. Lieberman is the author of The Emotional Life of the Toddler and senior author of Losing a Parent to Death in the Early Years: Guidelines for the Treatment of Traumatic Bereavement in Infancy and Early Childhood and Dont Hit My Mommy!: A Manual for Child-Parent Psychotherapy with Young Witnesses of Family Violence, among numerous other publications. Her major interests include infant mental health, early trauma, and closing the service gap for minority and underserved young children and their families.
Patricia Van Horn, JD, PhD, is Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and Associate Director of the Child Trauma Research Project. She serves as technical assistance provider and clinical consultant to the San Francisco Safe Start Initiative and has trained clinicians nationally and abroad in child-parent psychotherapy through the SAMHSA National Child Traumatic Stress Network and the Safe Start Promising Practices Initiative. She is the author of a child trauma training curriculum for advocates serving women and children affected by domestic violence and a coauthor of Dont Hit My Mommy! and Losing a Parent to Death in the Early Years.
Table of Contents
1. When Development Falters: Putting Relationships First2. Coping with Danger: The Stress–Trauma Continuum3. Practicing Child–Parent Psychotherapy: Treatment Targets and Strategies4. The Assessment Process5. "Not Quite Good Enough": Perturbations in Early Relationships6. Ghosts and Angels in the Nursery: Treating Disturbances and Disorders7. Variations in Child–Parent Psychotherapy8. Lapses in Attunement: Failures in the Therapeutic Relationship9. Integrating Child–Parent Psychotherapy with Other Service Systems10. Closing Thoughts: Taking Perspective