Clair Mellenthin – Attachment Centered Play Therapy: Repair Relational Trauma and Build Secure Attachment to Accelerate Family Treatment

When trauma, grief, and loss disrupts the family system, a child may feel unprotected, unloved, or disbelieved, causing relational injury and at times rupture the attachment bond. Children, not having the words to express how they feel, display the hurt in maladaptive ways — aggression, rage, defiance, oppositional behaviors, shutting down, hiding away, or numbing. For the parent, shame is a factor. Shame that they can’t “parent away” the hurt and the misbehavior—that their love isn’t “good enough”.

How do we as therapists, help families begin repairing and rebuilding the lost connection/disruption?

Watch me in this interactive recording to discover an integrative therapeutic approach, Attachment Centered Play Therapy that includes the parents in the therapy process. The parent is integral in creating conditions of security and trustworthiness to address attachment wounds, trauma, grief and loss.

This developmentally appropriate, client-centered method brings a holistic, systemic approach to address:

• Vulnerability to acknowledge the hurt, and the roadblocks
• Challenging issues of shame, vulnerability, grief, and loss
• Aggression and defiance and other maladaptive behavioral issues
• Attachment centered and proactive strategies instead of reactivity or reactive responses
• Repairing and strengthening the bonds of attachment between parent and child
• Parents becoming a resource, as well as coregulator for their child
• Rapport building with parents (this is a MUST in child and family therapy)

You’ll learn new and innovative attachment-centered play therapy techniques including hands on experiential activities, guided imagery, sand tray interventions, and expressive arts—practicing sand tray therapy, techniques assessing family relationships, bonds of attachment, and family dynamics.

We will explore difficult cases, ask questions, develop new assessment skills, and explore styles of attachment and how this plays out in therapeutic relationships with our clients.