EMDR and Family Therapy: Integrative Treatment for Attachment Trauma in Children

Loss of a parent, separations, abuse, neglect or a history of a difficult foster or orphanage experience can lead to profound emotional dysregulation in children. Working with these children can feel overwhelming for clinicians. But by integrating EMDR with family therapy, clinicians can strengthen parent–child attachment bonds and help to mend the early experiences that drive a traumatised child’s behaviour. This manual—an update to Debra Wesselmann’s popular Integrative Team Treatment for Attachment Trauma in Children—provides clear, step-by-step application of the Integrative Attachment Protocol for Children (IATP-C). In this treatment, psychoeducation assists parents in developing trauma-informed responses to their children’s challenging behaviours, while family therapy and EMDR therapy deepen children’s bonds with parents; improve self-awareness, self-regulation and self-worth; and assist children with making sense of their traumatic pasts. Any EMDR-trained clinician—or any clinician pairing with an EMDR therapist—can implement this treatment approach to heal suffering from attachment trauma and offer children and their families a better future.