Adult Survivors of Developmental Trauma: A Framework for Assessment and Intervention
Presenter(s)
Certified Professional Counselling Centre
Often times the early life trauma of parent/caregivers has an adverse impact on their current family system, specifically on the child/parent relationship, the co-parenting relationship, and the marital dyad. As such, we recognize the importance and benefit of interventions that will engage the parent/caregiver in “doing their work” so that repair and healing can happen for the individual and the family system.
This training is focused on parents/caregivers who are survivors of developmental trauma. This is not often the focus for those accessing the mental health system as we have a tradition of viewing these individuals as having an “Axis II” diagnosis, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and as such are often challenged to know how to engage the adult in a way that lends itself to repair. This training brings voice to a shift that was started in 2003 by the Treatment and Research Advancements National Association for Personality Disorders (TARA-APD) concerning our understanding of BPD. Considering adult survivors from a developmental trauma lens rather than a BPD lens provides an opportunity to contribute to this shifting perspective in that it makes space to ask our clients “what happened to you “ rather than “what is wrong with you?” (Bernadette Kiraly, MD, 2018).