An innovative somatic and attachment-based treatment for working with children and adolescents who suffer from complex trauma and neglect
"[This] is a ground-breaking new approach to treating traumatized children, based on the combination of keen clinical observation, sensory integration, and a deep understanding of the latest advances in the neuroscience of trauma."—Bessel van der Kolk, MD, best-selling author of The Body Keeps the Score
The SMART (Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment) program addresses three key processes that can be derailed by developmental trauma--somatic regulation, trauma processing, and attachment-building--and uses movement and sensation to target the neurological structures that support emotional and behavioral regulation. Transforming Trauma in Children and Adolescents teaches therapists the eight key skills required for SMART mastery and provides seven regulation tools for clients, helping children and adolescents manage their feelings and attend to developmental tasks like making friends, participating at school, learning to play with others, and developing a sense of self that includes--but isn't defined by--the trauma they've experienced. Enriched with case studies and recommended adaptations, the book includes resources for parents and other caregivers who want to provide ongoing supportive care outside the clinical setting.
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Housed within the framework of the tenets of Sensory Integration, the authors have developed a triune intervention model that threads together the aspects of somatic regulation, trauma processing, and attachment-building in order to widen the window of tolerance for the dysregulated behavioral, emotional, and relational challenges faced by children and adolescents with a history of developmental trauma. The Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART) intervention model addresses the most fundamental mechanisms of traumatized children in a bottom-up, nonverbal language treatment option that not only prompts kids to ask—Do I get to play in there!—while peeking into his or her therapist’s office, but more fundamentally, helps them make meaning of their traumatic experiences through the combined therapeutic actions of movement and sensory processes. Thus, while SMART focuses on the body it nonetheless changes a child’s state of consciousness. This book is a clinical must-read for therapists who treat traumatized children or adolescents.
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Marilyn R. Davillier LCSW, MSSA and Ed Tronick, PhD, founders of the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship, University of Massachusetts Boston