An informal introduction to attachment and what it means for understanding and helping children who have experienced trauma, neglect or abuse. Doodles featuring throughout the book bring the ideas to life - ideal for parents or professionals caring for fostered, adopted and looked after children.

Trauma and attachment are commonly used terms, but are complex concepts. 'Trauma' refers to negative experiences that cause us to fear for our safety, whilst 'attachment' describes meaningful relationships with someone we love or respect. Why, then, is so much of the language surrounding these concepts so obscure, and why is it so challenging to help children who have experienced trauma, and lack healthy attachment bonds? Providing grounded advice accompanied by accessible 'doodles' throughout, this guide aims to bring some clarity to the subject. It explains the differing attachment patterns in children who are adopted, fostered, or have experienced early trauma. The book also provides advice on how to repair attachment difficulties and to build secure, loving relationships. With new material on cultural diversity and sexual exploitation as well as specific guidance for trafficked and asylum-seeking children, this fully updated new edition provides you with all you need to know.

Much has been written about cognitive development in those who are cognitively impaired. Much is written about attachment for people who don't have disabilities. Yet people with disabilities have suffered discrimination and neglect of their emotional needs, perhaps because the pain of difference cannot be tolerated, perhaps because of lack of will or lack of knowledge. This book aims to help to fill the knowledge gap and to encourage others to overcome their resistance to facing the pain, and will be an important contribution to our understanding of the world of disability and emotional deprivation. In this book - a result of over twenty years experience with people who have disabilities and additional distress as a result of traumatic life experiences - an attempt is made to bring together what we know about early emotional development and the consequences of failure to provide an emotionally nurturing experience, and the results are then applied to people with disabilities.

Packed full of great ideas for fun games and activities, this book encourages positive attachments between a parent or carer and their child. When it comes to choosing the best games to play with children who have difficulties attaching, it is often hard to know how to play with a purpose. This book contains fun, age-appropriate games along with an explanation of why they matter. All the games included are designed for specific age ranges, from infants to older children, and help to address particular needs in children that are known to affect attachment, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. It provides an easy-to-understand description of attachment and reveals the crucial role that play has in forming attachments. Written for parents and carers, as well as for use by professionals, it is full of strategies to help build healthy attachments in children who have experienced early trauma.

Concise and easy-to-understand, this book provides an introduction to what attachment means and how to recognise attachment disorder in children. Colby Pearce explains how complex problems in childhood may stem from the parent-child relationship during a child's early formative years, and later from the child's engagement with the broader social world. The book explores the mind-set of difficult and traumatised children and the motivations behind their complex tendencies and behaviours. It goes on to offer a comprehensive set of tried-and-tested practical strategies that can be used with children affected by an attachment disorder. This second edition has been updated to include the new DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder and an increased number of illustrative case vignettes. This is a perfect introduction to the subject for parents, carers and practitioners in supportive roles caring for children.

The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a new perspective on why people sometimes experience a whole range of forms of distress, confusion, fear, despair, and troubled or troubling behaviour. It is an alternative to the more traditional models based on psychiatric diagnosis. It was co-produced with service users and applies not just to people who have been in contact with the mental health or criminal justice systems, but to all of us. The Framework summarises and integrates a great deal of evidence about the role of various kinds of power in people's lives; the kinds of threat that misuses of power pose to us; and the ways we have learned as human beings to respond to threat. In traditional mental health practice, these threat responses are sometimes called 'symptoms'. The Framework also looks at how we make sense of these difficult experiences, and how messages from wider society can increase our feelings of shame, self-blame, isolation, fear and guilt. The main aspects of the Framework are summarised in these questions, which can apply to individuals, families or social groups: 'What has happened to you?' (How is Power operating in your life?) 'How did it affect you?' (What kind of Threats does this pose?) 'What sense did you make of it?' (What is the Meaning of these situations and experiences to you?) 'What did you have to do to survive?' (What kinds of Threat Response are you using?) In addition, the two questions below help us to think about what skills and resources people might have, and how we might pull all these ideas and responses together into a personal narrative or story: 'What are your strengths?' (What access to Power resources do you have?) 'What is your story?' (How does all this fit together?)

Attachment and Interaction is an accessible introduction to the history and evolution of attachment theory, which traces the early roots of attachment theory from the work of its creator John Bowlby through to the most recent theoretical developments and their clinical applications. Mario Marrone explores how attachment theory can inform the way in which therapists work with their patients, and what the practical implications are of using such an approach. By bringing together personal anecdotes from his own experiences as Bowlby's supervisee with clear explanations of Bowlby's ideas, Marrone creates a memorable and engaging account of attachment theory. This new, updated edition includes references to bereavement, sexuality and the application of attachment-based principles to individual, family and group psychotherapy. This clear exposition of attachment theory is relevant and valuable reading for trainees and practising individual and group psychotherapists, family therapists and mental health professionals – as well as anyone with an interest in John Bowlby and the evolution of psychotherapy.