Treating Adult Children of Relational Trauma: 85 Experiential Interventions to Heal the Inner Child and Create Authentic Connection in the Present

Credits

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Author

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Endorsements

“Psychodrama is one of the most effective treatments of PTSD and developmental trauma that I am familiar with, and Tian Dayton has written a terrific manual to serve as our guide. Psychodrama helps to make our inner world visible and manifest what we struggle with, not so much by words, but by actions, making the invisible observable and measurable. Operating in a space where important people from our past are recreated in the living present, and where we can experience and manifest our confused inner world, we can finally say the words that were never spoken, and allow feelings to emerge that could not be expressed back then. Working with others in a three-dimensional space, as psychodrama does, can not only uniquely create a timeless experience where past and present can merge to help us reconfigure our mental alignment, but also provide profound reparative experiences.”
- Bessel van der Kolk, MD professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, president of the Trauma Research Foundation, and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Body Keeps the Score

“We store the imprint of trauma in our bodies as ‘snapshots’ frozen in the nervous system that tell the story of how the body-mind experienced trauma. Therapists need to understand what the living, sensing body is telling us in order to help clients heal. Tian Dayton’s approach to embodied therapy using psychodrama informed by Somatic Experiencing® allows the body’s unspoken voice to come forward and be heard. In this treatment guide, Tian has provided us with an unparalleled approach for treating relational trauma that confirms what we know to be true: Bringing the body into healing is a crucial component of recovery. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is treating the pain of unhealed attachment wounds.”
- Peter Levine, PhD, developer of Somatic Experiencing® and best-selling author of Waking the Tiger

“Tian Dayton has done the field a tremendous service in making the active, experiential components of psychodrama and sociometry available to the layperson in the form of sociometrics. In my role as chief clinical officer at Phoenix House, she worked with me and several trainers in getting sociometrics to the staff in over 100 treatment programs. The clinical staff consisted primarily of entry-level staff and still they were able to implement the skills of sociometrics in the form of feelings floor checks, timeline work, letter writing, social atoms (on paper), and other activities with fidelity and competence. Importantly, the staff embraced these activities with enthusiasm and excitement. These skills profoundly increased the engagement of the staff and transformed the level of clinical services provided at the treatment programs. I can’t thank Tian enough for having the amazing intellect that was able to transform components of psychodrama and sociometry – skills that take years to learn – into the easy-to-implement sociometrics that get clients out of their seats and into the here and now!”
- Deni Carise, Phd, adjunct clinical professor at the University of Pennsylvania

“Tian Dayton is brilliant, and her work on sociometrics is groundbreaking for addiction and other mental health disciplines due to the nature of incorporating psychodrama and sociometry into treatment. We at NAADAC are so thrilled with this work that we are partnering with Dr. Dayton to create a certificate program in order to advance training and skills for therapists and counselors to help heal their clients. Not only does this work heal the clients, but it is cyclical – it also heals the counselor as they use it! The value and need for adult relational trauma treatment is huge due to the environmental issues we have all been faced with these past years, and as we heal the adult clients, they can heal their children and grandchildren. I am excited to learn and use this model for skill development, and more so, for the generational healing I have been doing in my own family to grow generations of health, recovery, and happy lives.”
- Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, BSW, NCAC II, executive director of NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals