Understanding & Responding to Relational Trauma in Child- Parent Psychotherapy

Selma Fraiberg taught us about the “Ghosts in the Nursery,” unmetabolized relational experiences that can haunt a parent’s interactions with their child. Decades of work in the area of domestic violence has shown us how parents and children may serve as trauma reminders for one another, triggering each other, hindering healing and interfering with safety within these critically important relationships. This presentation uses clinical vignettes and metaphors to illustrate interconnections between parents and children’s histories and reactions and highlight ways that two-generation interventions, like Child-Parent Psychotherapy, can repair relational trauma for both generations.

Objectives: Participants will be able to: 1) Name the components of the Child-Parent Psychotherapy triangle 2) Visually depict, using the Child-Parent Psychotherapy triangle, ways that trauma to one generation (parent or child) can impact the other generation 3) Describe the theory of ghosts in the nursery