Suchergebnisse

Children exposed to caregivers with alcohol abuse disorder (AUD) are often subjected to a psychologically destabilising home environment. These caregivers may demonstrate behaviours that compromise their children's sense of safety and security and lead to a range of trauma-related symptoms. A trauma-focused treatment approach may assist with the reduction of children's trauma-related symptoms as well as the prevention of, for example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, behavioural problems, and pathological shame. In this article, the authors discuss the incorporation of tenets of cognitive behavioural play therapy into a trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) approach for children affected by a caregiver with AUD. Additionally, the authors discuss the effects of caregiver AUD on children and outline an integrative play-based treatment approach for treating the trauma these children experience. A case example is presented to illustrate the integration of TF-CBT and cognitive behavioural play therapy (CBPT) for children with caregivers with AUD.

Intrafamilial trauma (the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse between two or more family members) can render psychologically deleterious effects not only on abused children, but their non-abused sibling(s) as well (Vitale, Squires, Zuckerbraun & Berger 2010). However, non-abused siblings are rarely the participants of trauma treatment or the focus of research, rendering them the 'forgotten survivors' of childhood maltreatment (Renner 2012; Tavkar & Hansen 2011). Nevertheless, therapists may encounter these siblings as patients as they too present myriad problematic symptoms and grief-related experiences (McMackin, Newman, Fogler & Keane 2012; Van der Kolk 2014). To assist therapists when counselling non-abused children affected by intrafamilial maltreatment, this article aims to describe the psychosocial impact of intrafamilial childhood trauma on non-abused siblings and to discuss the ways that play-based treatment can be incorporated into an empirically supported trauma treatment approach to meet their needs and grief-based concerns adequately.