Unlocking healing: Weaving together family therapy and EMDR with the dissociative child

Child and adolescent therapists find it challenging to integrate EMDR therapy with complex cases and are often at loss when treating attachment wounds and managing dissociative symptoms. Dissociation is often misunderstood or unrecognized in its impact on traumatized children who have an array of more commonly recognized symptoms that become the diagnostic focus. It is imperative that children with complex trauma receive effective treatment early in their lives before their symptoms reach an apex necessitating hospitalizations, residential placements, or ruptured home placements. A child’s use of dissociative strategies has a profound influence on attachment, affect regulation, behavior control, cognition. This workshop will describe core symptoms of dissociation, and how these can overlap with other disorders. This workshop will describe how protective parts appear hostile and aggressive at home, school and community; and provide specialized interventions with children with dissociation that can be incorporated into treatment modalities, such as expressive arts, family therapy and EMDR.

Conference

English

Annie Monaco
Danyale Weems

Monaco, A., & Weems, D. (2024, August). Unlocking healing: Weaving together family therapy and EMDR with the dissociative child. Presentation at the HAP Conference, Philadelphia, PA