Dyadic Developmetal Psychotherapy receives support

The new book, Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorder, edited by Christine Courtois and Julian Ford, The Guilford Press, NY, 2009, supports the various elements, principles, and techniques of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. The chapter on family therapy approaches states, "Meta-analytic studies have found family based treatments to be more effective than treatment as usual (TAU)...The strongest evidence for the efficacy of family therapy for traumatic stress disorders is provided by studies with families of traumatized toddlers and preschool- or early elementary school-aged children." pp394-395.

The book describes the importance of affect regulation, focusing on attachment relationships in treatment, attention to developmental level and processes, emotional regulation, titrated exposure to traumatic memories, therapeutic alliance, intersubjectivity, and other topics that are core principles and methods of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. It is heartening to find additional support for the use of DDP in the treatment of attachment and trauma disorders.

The book describes practice principles for treating children with complex traumatic stress disorder which are quite consistent with previous material published about DDP over the last several years:
1. Safety First
2. A relational bridge must be developed to engage, retain, and maximally benefit the child and caregiver(s).
3. Diagnosis, treatment planning, and outcome monitoring are always relational.
4. Diagnosis, treatment planning, and outcome monitoring are always strengths-based.
5. All phases of treatment should aim to enhance self-regulation competencies.
5a. Emotional regulation.
5b. Attention, memory, decision making (information processing).
5c. Self-regulation of consciousness and motivation.
5d. Bodily self-regulation.
5e. Relational self-regulation.
6. Determining with whom, when, and how to address traumatic memories.
7. Preventing and managing relational discontinuities and psychosocial crises.
from pages 67-78.
As described and elaborated in the book, these principles have also been previously described and elaborated on in various publications about DDP (several books and journal articles).