The Little Book of Attachment: Theory to Practice in Child Mental Health with Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy

This book both explains and illustrates how the practice of child mental health professionals can be enhanced, whatever their treatment approach, to encourage engagement, resilience and development in children with mental health problems. Alongside practical recommendations, Daniel Hughes and Ben Gurney-Smith use dialogue from clinical work to illustrate applications of these principles from Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy as well as other attachment-based practices with parents and children. This little book will demystify how attachment theoryone of todays most in-demand approachescan actually be brought into clinical work.

Topics include regulating emotional states; repairing ongoing relationships; establishing an attachment-based therapeutic relationship; accepting a childs inner life; assessing the caregivers need for safety, regulation and reflection; the importance of nonverbal and verbal conversations in facilitating secure attachment; and strengthening the mind of the child.