Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy

Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
Dyadic Developmental
Psychotherapy:
A Brain Based Attachment Model
for Working with Traumatised
Children, Young people and their
Carers and Families.
www.childhood.org.au/for-professionals
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
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Advanced
training with
Dan Hughes (USA)
As an emerging knowledge base, the neuroscience of caregiving is critical to responding to the needs of traumatised
and at-risk children and young people. An in-depth understanding of attachment and the process of therapeutic
parenting has been used as the basis for the development of therapeutic foster care, residential and family group
home programs. It is also at the heart of family support services that aim to strengthen parenting capacity through
enhancing attunement and self reflection.
Dr Dan Hughes has been at the forefront of using attachment and neuroscience in resourcing adaptive and positive
connections between traumatised children and their parents or caregivers. His approach is family centred and
offers very practical strategies for a wide range of professionals who work with vulnerable children and their
relationship contexts.
…All children deserve the kind of caregiving that fosters the development of
secure attachment and puts them on a trajectory towards social and emotional
resilience. Too many children only know the kind of safety that comes intermittently
and disappears with a parent’s inattentiveness, defensiveness, disinterest, or loss of
control. This kind of fleeting, sporadic safety forces children to play defense much
too early in life, making them hypervigilant in one setting where they should be
able to relax deeply and feel “safe to the bone’ …(Hughes and Baylin, Brain Based
Parenting – The neuroscience of caregiving for healthy attachment, 2012).
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Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
A new partnership between the Australian
Childhood Foundation and Dan Hughes
In June 2013, Dan Hughes ran a series of universally
acclaimed national two day seminars. Since then,
the Australian Childhood Foundation has formed
a partnership with the Dyadic Developmental
Psychotherapy Network to be able to offer a range of
training opportunities and certification for professionals
who work with traumatised children, young people and
their carers and families.
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
(DDP) is the model of intervention
developed by Dan Hughes over the past
three decades.
DDP is a treatment approach to trauma, loss, and/
or other dysregulating experiences, that is based on
principles derived from the theories and research of
attachment, intersubjectivity, and trauma. DDP involves
creating a safe setting in which the child can begin to
explore, resolve, and integrate a wide range of memories,
emotions, and current experiences, that are frightening,
shameful, avoided or denied. Safety is created by
ensuring that this exploration occurs within a relational
context characterised by nonverbal attunement,
reflective dialogue, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy.
As the process unfolds, the child is creating a coherent
life-story which is crucial for attachment security and is
a strong protective factor against psychopathology.
Therapeutic progress occurs within the joint activities
of co-regulating affect and co-creating meaning.
The child’s caregivers, in so far as they are able and
committed to providing safety for their child, are active
participants in the process.
…when parents are experiencing
blocked care, they often focus
narrowly on the behavioural
difficulties that they are having
with their children. Under stress
and with the impairment of any
or all domains of care, parents
often hope to just “fix the problem”
without first making sense of the
relational difficulties they are
experiencing with their children…
(Hughes and Baylin, Brain Based
Parenting – The neuroscience of
caregiving for healthy attachment,
2012).
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
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Advanced Training Course in Dyadic
Developmental Psychotherapy
The Advanced Training Course in DDP provides the core
knowledge of theory, principles, and interventions that
are central in developing the skills necessary to practicing
DDP successfully.
The Advanced Training Course involves 8 days of in
depth learning with Dan Hughes in small groups of
approximately 30 people. The small group approach
ensures maximum participation, relevant case discussion
and opportunities for real skill building.
It will be run as 2 x 4 day blocks in March and August/
September 2015 in Melbourne and Sydney. During the
course, Dan Hughes will
• provide extended presentations about the
knowledge base underpinning DDP including
how to
o support children and carers to start to resolve
traumatic experiences through
- shame interruption
- interactive repair
- co-regulation of arousal and affect
- shared meaning making,
o involve parents and/or caregivers in rhythmic
dialogue with children that is affective and
reflective,
o resource parents and caregivers to reach out to
the parts of their children that feel vulnerable,
lost and insecure,
o position an understanding of neurobiology of
attachment and concepts of blocked parenting
to know how to prepare for and carry out
therapeutic engagement with children, young
people and the caregivers;
• present and collaboratively analyse videos of his
therapeutic sessions with children and carers as a
way of understanding how DDP is put into practice;
• use role plays to develop specific skills relevant to
the practice of DDP;
• examine how the attachment history of practitioners
shapes and influence their way of undertaking DDP;
•
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ask a sample of participants to present video taped
sessions of their initial DDP intervention with children,
young people and their carers or parents as the
basis for feedback and consultation.
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
The Advanced Training Course in DPP is both theoretical
and practical. It provides real strategies that enable
practitioners who work with relationships to know what to
say, when and why so as to orient children and caregivers
to each other’s reciprocal needs in a way that opens
up rapport, trust and a receptiveness to growth and
development.
Dan’s training is thought-provoking and moving.
His framework respects the insights offered by the
neurobiology of trauma and attachment. However, he
also integrates into his therapeutic responses to children
a much wider appreciation of the importance of
metaphor, play and intersubjectivity when working with
families as a whole. He is generous with his ideas and
experience. Practitioners will leave with the knowledge
that they have fully examined this seminal therapeutic
model.
The Advanced Training Course is essential for child
protection, out of home care, family support and mental
health professionals who are interested in more centrally
engaging with the power of relationships to heal and
transform the trauma associated with abuse, violence
and neglect.
Certification in Dyadic Developmental
Psychotherapy
At the end of this course, participants are eligible
to apply to become certified as a Dyadic Developmental
Practitioner.
The certification process involves a supervised practicum
where they submit 10 video sessions of their work to
a certified DDP supervisor who provides them with
feedback and opportunities for practice reflection.
After the supervised practicum, you will be a certified
DDP practitioner related to your qualifications.
For example, you will be a certified DDP therapist,
caseworker, parent mentor.
The Australian Childhood Foundation is the exclusive
organizer of all DDP courses and training in Australia.
We will facilitate and manage the supervised practicums
in a liaison support role with practitioners and international
supervisors.
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
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Structure of
the Course
Days 1- 4
Days 5- 8
• Review of basic principles and interventions of
Attachment-Focused Treatment.
• Presentation of complexities of developing and maintaining
the therapist-parent alliance.
• Exploration of utilisation of interventions learned in
Beginning Level.
• Neuropsychological research regarding attachment and
caregiving behaviors.
• Successes and challenges of early practice utilisation.
• Role-Play examples of challenges of working with parents.
• Presentation of the importance of Attachment history
of therapist when treating families with attachment-related
challenges.
• Small group work around Attachment histories of therapists
(Review).
• Exploration of particularly challenging treatment cases,
including the following: multi-problem families, dual
diagnosis, severe developmental trauma symptoms.
• Small group work around Attachment histories of therapists(2).
• Role-Play with feedback from Dan Hughes.
• Discussion of particularly challenging treatment cases of
Dan Hughes and participants.
• Exploration of similarities and differences between
Attachment - focused treatment and other treatment models.
• Case discussions focusing on treatment and caregiving.
• Role-Play with feedback from Dan Hughes.
• DVDs of therapeutic sessions of participants are utilised.
• Evidence Base for Attachment and DDP
• Small group role-plays
Lunch
• Small group work around Attachment histories of therapists (1)
• DVDs of therapeutic sessions of Dan Hughes and participants
are utilised, as well as case discussions.
• Review of specific caregiving principles for children with
trauma/attachment problems.
• Discussion of particularly challenging behavioral problems
manifested in the home and school.
Lunch
• Further focus on working with parents as early stage of
Attachment-focused treatment (Advanced Level).
• DVDs of therapeutic sessions of Dan Hughes and participants
are utilised.
• Further focus on establishing and maintaining the therapeutic
alliance with parents, caregivers, teachers.
• Exploration of Attachment-focused supervision and training:
core components.
• Final Review of the practice of DDP.
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Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
Since I don’t know you
please help me to discover
parts of you that you once
wanted to be found…
You know only what your parents thought
was you and little more.
You stopped trying to know who you were
thinking that they were right—
they were your parents—
how could they be wrong.
They were blind to your hopes
and your dreams.
They did not hear your calls
for safety, nor understand
the meaning of your hand,
reaching for them.
Nor why you looked away
and covered your face…
A poem by Dan Hughes
About Dr. Dan Hughes
For most of his professional life, Dr. Dan Hughes has been a psychologist specialising in the treatment of children and
youth with severe emotional and behavioural problems. His work has focused on children and youth who experienced
developmental trauma and attachment disorganisation along with their foster and adoptive families.
Dan has borrowed heavily from attachment theory and neurobiology research to develop a model of treatment
that he calls Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. DDP is a nondirective yet directive, client-cantered approach,
influenced by psychodynamic, gestalt, Rogerian, and Ericksonian traditions, brought together within the dance of
affect attunement that is seen most powerfully in the relationship between a parent and her/his infant and toddler.
The DDP model is described well in Building the Bonds of Attachment, 2nd Edition (2006).
He expanded the treatment model so that it was applicable to all families, which led to the publication of AttachmentFocused Family Therapy Workbook in 2011 and Attachment-Focused Parenting in 2009. In 2012 he wrote Brain-Based
Parenting with Jon Baylin, and Creating Loving Attachments with Kim Golding.
He offers regular beginning and advanced training in attachment-focused therapy in Pennsylvania and Maine and
has been providing similar trainings throughout the year in other cities in the US, UK, and Canada. He is also a visiting
tutor at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, which is a graduate program for psychotherapists. He has
provided therapist training, conducted seminars and spoken at conferences around the US for the past twelve years.
He also provides ongoing supervision and consultation to various clinicians and agencies, while speaking regularly to
groups of parents.
Dan’s treatment is family-centered with parents and caregivers actively involved in their child’s treatment through
providing safety and intersubjective learning, as well as in addressing any unresolved themes from their own attachment
histories. Central to this treatment is Affective-Reflective Dialogue, which attempts to capture the living narrative and
is heavily embedded in nonverbal, emotional, communications, as well as the attitude of PACE (playful, accepting,
curious, and empathic).
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
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Course Dates
and Details
Course Dates (All sessions run from 9.30 am – 4.30 pm)
Block A
Block B
Melbourne
To be determined
To be determined
Sydney
To be determined
To be determined
Venue Details
Melbourne
CBD location - Additional information will be available upon registration.
Sydney
CBD location - Additional information will be available upon registration.
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Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
Enrolment Form
Advanced training in Dydadic Developmental Psychotherapy with Dr. Dan Hughes (USA)
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy: A Brain Based Attachment Model for Working with Traumatised Children,
Young people and their Carers and Families
Please select the location in which you would like to do the Advance training with Dr. Dan Hughes
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Melbourne
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Sydney
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All fees are GST inclusive and include morning and tea and lunch. Save money by booking early
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If full payment is received with this registration form a further discount of $100 will apply.
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Payments can be made in full or through a payment plan.
The part payment plan will require the participant to sign an agreement where 50% of the payment is to be made
at the time of registration and 50% is due four weeks prior to the beginning of the course.
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For further information please phone 1800 176 453
Terms and Conditions for the Advanced DDP Course 2015: The Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF) requires payment of fees for this course to be made by the dates according to the
payment option chosen above by you unless otherwise agreed in writing by ACF. ACF will not register your attendance until full or part payment of the course fees has been received in
accordance with the payment option chosen above. In the event that full or part payment is not received by at least 14 days prior to the first date of the course you have nominated,
you will not be eligible to participate in the course. In the event that the part payment is received but the second part payment is not received by or on 30/5/15, you will not be eligible to
participate in the course. The course is comprised of the Block A dates and the Block B dates for each nominated location. If you can only attend the Block A dates or part thereof, or the
Block B dates or part thereof, you are still required to pay the complete course fees. ACF reserves the right to cancel or reschedule all or part of a course if circumstances beyond its control
make it necessary to do so, or if there are insufficient registrations within ten (10) days prior to the course commencement date. If ACF is required to cancel or reschedule all or part of a course
for whatever reason, you will receive prior notification and at your choice, either (a) a full refund or partial refund for the balance of any part of the course that you do not attend as a result
of the cancellation or change in scheduling, or (b) the option to transfer your registration to another course or series of seminars organised by ACF. You must notify ACF in writing or by email
if you wish to cancel your registration for the course. If you cancel your registration within fourteen (14) days prior to the course commencement date, or if you cancel after 30/5/15 your fees
will not be refunded or your registration transferred into another course or series of workshops or seminars organised by ACF. If you wish to cancel your registration for a scheduled seminar
more than fourteen (14) days prior to the commencement of the first date of the course in the nominated location, unless otherwise agreed in writing by ACF, you may either (a) transfer the
registration to another course or series of workshops organised by ACF and, if ACF is unable to fill the position vacated by you, incur a $1000 cancellation fee which will be deducted from any
payment you have made, or (b) cancel your registration and, if ACF is unable to fill the position vacated by you, incur a $1000 cancellation fee which will be deducted from any payment
that you have made. All cancellations initiated by you, except as described above will result in forfeiture of your payment upon cancellation unless otherwise agreed in writing by ACF.
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Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
Australian Childhood Foundation Professional Development Courses
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Australian Childhood Foundation
PO BOX 525 Ringwood VIC 3134
Phone: 1800 176 453
Email: training@childhood.org.au
www.childhood.org.au/for-professionals