Relationship, Trauma, and Attachment

AUNE Professor Martha Straus’ most recent book, Treating Trauma in Adolescents: Development, Attachment, and the Therapeutic Relationship, was published in January 2017 (Guilford).  This book presents an innovative and empathic approach to working with traumatized teens. It offers strategies for getting through to high-risk adolescents and for building a strong attachment relationship that can help get development back on track. Straus draws on extensive clinical experience as well as cutting-edge research on attachment, developmental trauma, and interpersonal neurobiology. Vivid case material shows how to engage challenging or reluctant clients, implement interventions that foster regulation and an integrated sense of identity, and tap into both the teen’s and the therapist’s moment-to-moment emotional experience.

Given her expertise in the areas of adolescence and trauma, Dr. Straus recently testified before the Vermont State Legislature about the long-term consequences of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). This fall she will be offering workshops in Portland, Maine and Toronto, Canada in which she will be teaching Developmental-Relational Therapy (DRT). This is the model of treatment she discusses in her most recent book

Her current research project is a workbook (being developed with 2nd-year student, Brooklyn Alvarez) filled with activities designed to foster co-regulation between traumatized youth and their caregivers. They have two publishers interested in this endeavor and will send out the proposal in a couple months!

We are delighted that Dr. Straus will be our speaker at the Department’s annual Field Supervisors Day in February and will speak on Love and Attachment in Psychotherapy and Supervision.