The Child Survivor Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation

In this second edition of Joyanna Silberg’s classic The Child Survivor, practitioners who treat dissociative children will find practical tools that are backed up by recent advances in clinical research. Chapters are filled with examples of clinical dilemmas that can challenge even the most expert child trauma clinicians, and Silberg shows how to handle these dilemmas with creativity, attunement, and sensitivity to the adaptive nature of even the most complex dissociative symptoms. The new edition addresses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and provides tips for working with traumatized children in telehealth. A new chapter on organized abuse explains how children victimized by even the most sadistic crimes can respond well to therapy. Clinicians on the front lines of treatment will come away from the book with an arsenal of therapeutic techniques that they can put into practice right away, limiting the need for restrictive hospitalizations or out-of-home placements for their young clients.

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1. Trauma and Its Effects 2. An Integrative Developmental Model of Dissociation 3. Diagnostic Considerations 4. Assessing Dissociative Processes 5. Beginning the Treatment Journey 6. Educate and Motivate: Introducing The EDUCATE Model 7. Bridging the Selves: Healing through Connections to what’s Hidden 8. "I Try to Forget to Remember": Reversing Amnesia 9. Befriending the Body: Somatic Considerations for the Child Survivor 10. Staying Awake: Reversing Dissociative Shutdown 11. Building Attachment across States: Affect Regulation in the Context of Relationships 12. Child-Centered Family Therapy: Family Treatment as Adjunct to Dissociation-Focused Interventions 13. Rewriting the Script: Processing Traumatic Memories and Resolving Flashbacks 14. Countering Organized Abuse: Organized Attachment and Love 15. Interfacing With Systems: The Therapist as Activist 16. Integration of Self: Towards a Healing Future References Appendices Index

Joyanna L. Silberg, PhD, is a clinical child psychologist, an international expert on dissociation in children and adolescents, and past president of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.