Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (also known as therapeutic parenting) provides an approach for parents and carers to support children who are recovering from trauma, helping families to develop healthy patterns of communicating which support children to feel safe and connected.
The approach supports parents when facing challenging behaviour to parent with PACE: playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. This enables the parent to stay emotionally available and attuned to the child.
This therapeutic approach allows family members to be open to each other’s inner world and how this effects outward behaviour, helping to build safe and connected relationships.
Initially the therapist will have sessions with the parents alone, building a supportive therapeutic relationship. They will explore the impact of parenting their child on the them and also their own attachment history. At a later stage in the programme when the therapist feels the parent is ready the child will join the sessions. Sessions will then be focused on understanding the child’s world and supporting emotional regulation.
A DDP programme of support will be over a minimum of 20 sessions, which can take place within a home or community setting.