Mentalization-Based Treatment for Developmental Trauma: A Casebook for Working with Children and Their Families

Mentalization-Based Treatment for Developmental Trauma offers mental health practitioners a transdiagnostic model to support the needs of traumatised children with both internalising (emotional) and externalising (behavioural) difficulties and shows how MBT can be applied to meet the needs of children who have experienced various types of developmental trauma.

This volume includes contributions from global experts in MBT who share their experience of using the method with traumatised children in a range of settings, from individual therapy to group work and work with parents, carers and the networks around the child. They highlight the benefits of using MBT with different groups, such as children in foster or residential care or those who are refugees. The chapters offer a framework for clinicians to support children to better process and regulate their emotions, highlighting the importance of early intervention as a means of mitigating certain psychopathologies that commonly result from developmental trauma. With clinical vignettes throughout, this book covers different stages of treatment, such as assessment, direct therapy with the child, work with the network and support for carers and parents.

This book is a vital resource for child counsellors, psychologists, psychoanalysts and therapists who work with children who have experienced developmental trauma, as well as junior psychologists and child psychiatrists, mental health nurses, social workers and others working in child mental health services.