Pragmatic Case Studies in Psy­chotherapy: Three Case Studies

From the February bulletin of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network:

In the first article: "Trauma Treatment in Young Children with Developmental Disabilities: Applications of the Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) Model to the Cases of "James" and "Juan," Eliza Harley, Marian Williams, Irina Zamora, and Patricia Lakatos studied the application of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with two young children with developmental disabilities who were exposed to trauma. Two Latino clients and their families were selected: 14-month old James with global developmental delays following medical trauma (surgery and stroke) and 6-year old Juan diagnosed with autism who had early expo­sure to domestic violence and a history of physical and emotional abuse. Utilizing the CPP model, au­thors addressed the families’ histories of traumatic events, including domestic violence, medical trauma, and attachment concerns associated with parental adjustment to diagnosis.

In the second article, Clinical Considerations for Conducting Child-Parent Psychotherapy with Young Children with Developmental Disabilities Who Have Experienced Trauma, Chandra Gosh Ippen, Car­men Rosa Noroňa, and Alicia Lieberman reflect on the preceding work with James and Juan, highlight­ing the need to address four key topic areas when conducting CPP with children with disabilities: (1) risks that present within the caregiver-child relationship, including caregivers’ unresolved grief; (2) the potential for the caregiver or child’s history of trauma to contribute to challenges in the child and care­giver’s functioning; (3) working as part of an interdisciplinary team to coordinate care and better address the complex needs of families; and (4) applying a socio-cultural lens in every aspect of the work.

In the third article, Child-Parent Psychotherapy in the Context of the Developmental Disability and Medi­cal Service Systems, authors Marian Williams, Melissa Carson, Irina Zamora, Eliza Harley, and Patricia Lakatos, explore further implementation of CPP in the context of the developmental disability and medi­cal service system. Specifically, authors highlight the importance of resilience in parents’ responses to their child’s developmental disability, contributions from pediatric psychology to understanding pediatric medical traumatic stress, infusing relationship-based approaches in collaboration with other service sys­tems, and addressing barriers to service access in ethnic minority families. Finally, they provide recom­mendations for training and fidelity monitoring when applying CPP to children with developmental disa­bilities and their families.

For more information, see Vol 10, No 3, of Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy.