Therapeutic Work with Children and Their Parents to Address Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma–Laurel Silber, Psy.D Scientific Program

Fee to attend: $30 for NOBPC members; $50 non-members; and $15 student rate. All attendees will receive a 2 hour CME certificate. This meeting is virtual. Pre-registration is required.

Intergenerational transmission of trauma, metaphorically referred to as haunting ghosts, has been an elusive subject to unpack in the context of clinical work with children. How do children communicate what is on their mind about this through their play and behavior? How do we help parents with the retrieval of painful memories? Deescalating fear and re-representing past trauma create an opportunity in the new generation to build security for the child and the parent-child relationship. The clinical mind plays with paradox across different developmental levels to mentalize transmitted trauma. Attachment research and contemporary theory provide significant insights to put to use clinically. This presentation will open up this complex clinical area by formulating it with the help of relevant research findings, poetry and clinical illustrations.

Learning objectives:

• Describe the relevance of children’s play as reflective space for marking the presence of transmitted trauma in the attachment context.

• Identify the importance of the pivot to work with parental subjectivity to maintain the focus on making experience coherent and meaningful, supporting a child’s agency.

In advance of this talk, Dr. Silber has shared the following articles for consideration:

Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., and Shapiro, V. (1975) “Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Impaired Infant-Mother Relationships.” Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14(3): 387-421.

Moldawsky Silber, L. (2012) Ghostbusting Transgenerational Processes. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 22:106-122

REGISTRATION

If you prefer to pay via check, please email nobpcenter@gmail.com.

Laurel Silber, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist with a practice in Bryn Mawr, PA working with children and their families for over 30 years. She is faculty and Director of the Child Relational Psychotherapy Program at the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia and immediate Past President of the Section on children and adolescents of the Division of Psychoanalysis of APA. She has presented and published original articles and chapters on the subjects of intergenerational transmission of trauma, the importance of play to child development and child psychotherapy, gender and childism. Her most recent writing (in press) is entitled: Parental Implication and the Expansion of the Child Relational Therapist’s Clinical Imagination.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and NOBPC. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. *Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. -Updated July 2021-

PSYCHOLOGISTS AND SOCIAL WORKERS MAY RECEIVE CREDIT FOR THIS ACTIVITY WITH A CME CERTIFICATE.