Hilary Jacobs Hendel
Posted in Attachment, Our Voices, Recent Posts, Trauma
“Why do some children become sad, withdrawn, insecure, or angry, whereas others become happy, curious, affectionate, and self-confident?” developmental psychologist Edward Tronick, Ph.D. asked in a 1989 paper called “Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants.” The answer lies in large part with the quality of emotional communication,
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Janyne McConnaughey, PhD
Posted in ATN News, Our Voices
Every caring adult can make a difference in a child’s life
At the Attachment and Trauma Network (ATN),we hear many stories about parents, teachers, therapists, and other individuals making a difference in children’s lives. It inspired us to choose the theme #OneCaringAdult for our #GivingTuesday campaign.
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Carol Monaco
Posted in Attachment, Our Voices, Trauma
During a session with your therapist, she hands you a paper with three concentric circles drawn on it. They represent relative levels of trust in relationships. The central circle is who you trust the most. She asks you who you would put in that spot. You don’t answer. She pushes. You remain silent. Finally, she suggests your parents. You nod. You know that she needs you to nod.
Carol Monaco
Posted in Attachment, Our Voices, Parenting Traumatized Children, Therapeutic Parenting, Trauma
A new season is upon us. The glow from the dawn of the new year is on the wane. For some of us, it is in the company of the resolutions to which we swore our allegiance before we climbed into bed at 9:30 on December 31 – satisfied that 2019 would arrive whether or not we were there to meet it.
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Cissy White
Posted in Our Voices, Therapeutic Parenting, Trauma
Parenting with ACEs doesn’t always require intense therapy. Sometimes all we need is a friend, a conversation, someone to remind us that we will be okay, if not immediately, then eventually.
Relationships or things?
Which one are you focusing upon this holiday season?
To be honest, my family’s first Christmas 20 years ago was over-stimulating. An emotional roller coaster. My six adopted children unwrapped one gift after another – many from people they hardly knew.
The following morning,
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Hilary Jacobs Hendel
Posted in Our Voices
The problem? Thanksgiving didn’t feel the same
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I have a relatively small family and since I wasn’t raised with religion, Thanksgiving was the main holiday where everyone all came together for a festive meal. This gave me a sense of family deep in my heart.
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Laura Dennis
Posted in Attachment, Book Reviews, Our Voices
When TarcherPerigee offered to send me Peter Lovenheim’s The Attachment Effect: Exploring the Powerful Ways Our Earliest Bond Shapes Our Relationships and Lives so I could review it for the ATN blog, I had two sets of contradictory hopes and fears. One was that I’d see my child in it.
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Lorraine Fuller
Posted in Attachment, Our Voices, Parenting Traumatized Children, Therapeutic Parenting, Trauma
I have moved into a new phase in life, especially my parenting life. My last child has moved out of the house. Another child visited for the summer, so we didn’t experience a true empty nest immediately. Yet it is still a new phase–the child who moved out last was our child with an alphabet soup of diagnoses.
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Hilary Jacobs Hendel
Posted in Attachment, Our Voices, Therapies, Trauma, Treatment
As a trauma and emotion-centered psychotherapist, I am relieved that children are now being screened for toxic stress. Thinking about mental health as a byproduct of a child’s environment is an important addition to current thinking on how to improve children’s wellbeing. Rushing to diagnose a child with a potentially stigmatizing label,
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