Rebuilding Trust After Attachment Ruptures in Children and Adolescents – Dana Wyss

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Family loss, abuse, neglect, and complex developmental trauma erode trust in self and others causing attachment ruptures. Children and adolescents are at higher risk of impact due to their dependence on others to meet their needs, making them even more vulnerable!

Without proper intervention, these ruptures will greatly impact a child’s overall safety, and their ability to connect with others is jeopardized.

Watch Dana Wyss, PhD, author and expert in complex trauma, to delve deeper into the impact of these attachment ruptures that lead to lack of trust, anger/rage, anxiety, self-injury, aggression toward others, and suicidal ideation. You’ll learn how to:

• Support increased sense of safety and attachment, regardless of the child’s level of involvement in treatment
• Build connections in groups, individual and family therapy
• Implement modifications to address various developmental and functioning levels

Through experiential practice that supports resiliency, imagination, and identity, you’ll master activities to build critical thinking, nonverbal and verbal expression to immediately support attachment repair!

1. Differentiate healthy attachments from disrupted attachments to inform treatment planning. 
2. Evaluate the differences between acute, chronic, and complex traumas and their impact on attachment. 
3. Effectively process grief and attachment disruptions. 
4. Employ interventions that increase emotional identification and expression
5. Strengthen the resiliency of treatment outcomes through the use of safe rituals and healthy boundaries
6. Apply developmentally appropriate art and writing interventions to enhance feelings of trust and safety.

Attachment Ruptures and Impact

• What is healthy attachment?
• Secure, ambivalent, and avoidant attachment styles
• The effects of attachment ruptures over time
• Trauma: acute, chronic, and complex developmental
• Fight, flight, freeze, and submit/comply

Attachment-Focused Assessment & Treatment Planning How to meet goals and benchmarks:

• Iceberg Activity – delve below surface to see beyond behaviors
• What is connecting you and why – “The Invisible String”
• Tools that can be used in the clinical interview
• Identifying the details and impact of the rupture
• Creating a trauma-responsive environment
• Modifications for age and developmental level

Attachment Ruptures: Familial loss and Complex Developmental Trauma

• Disruption: loss (death of a family member, divorce, separation due to military, work travel, COVID)
• Impact: loss of connection, change in structure or routine, lack of trust
• Response: confusion, anger, grief, anxiety, self-injury, defiance
• Vignette examples and analyzations

Creative Interventions for: Increased safety, identity development and resiliency

• I Wish Everyone Understood to support communication and trust
• Qualities of Safety (connection and trust)
• My Safe Place(s) (identifying emotionally safe spaces)

Increased trust, emotional identification and expression

• Personal Feeling Chart (self-awareness)
• Feelings Charades (trust)
• Words Have Power (identity, self-trust)
• Games for didactic engagement to support trust

Activities to Support Grief and Separation:

• Ice Cube Feelings to process underlying feelings related to grief and loss
• When I miss you to create connection with someone who is far away or who has passed away
• When We are Apart use a transitional object to support continued connection with both parents
• Family Map identifies family members and reminds us we are connected

Put Critical Thinking to Work Modify and adjust activities:

• Different ages
• Developmental level
• Educational level

Setting the Stage of Trust for Continued Safety

• The Container closing activity to empower choice, safe rituals and healthy boundaries