Hi Elena, Charlie Zeanah at the University of Louisiana Medical School has published research on the attachment disruptions in this population. He argues that these children have problems attaching to anyone. He has developed a scale measuring presence of attachment, which you could think of as a form of resilience--in other words, children who have the ability to form some kind of attachment at all will have a better prognosis than children who don't. Geoff Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA, CST, CSAT-S, CMAT-S Associate Professor Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Long Island University 720 Northern Blvd. Brookville, NY 11548 (516) 299-4277 http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm ________________________________________ From: list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org [list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org] on behalf of ELENA MARDEGAN [elenamardegan@btinternet.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 5:34 PM To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org Subject: Re: CaFTR Research with looked after children / children in foster care Dear collegues, Apologises for sending this so late and for not being strictly researched based. I would like to know whether there are research case studies on internationally adopted children other than those indicated by Philip Fisher in his review of the literature of this group. (Ref page 2-5-6). I have experience of treating a couple of latency children who had been adopted between 6 and 24 months by White European adoptive parents. The children were reared in extremely deprived orphanages in Asia and Africa but were not maltreated. They presented mild to severe delays in their psychological and physical development, highly conflicting relationships with the adoptive parents- mother in particular - ADHD and / pseudo autism, conductive disorders diagnosis and medication had been recommended in the NHS. Parents opted for parallel one to one psychoanalytic psychotherapy for the child and support to the parental couple. The case where the work with the parents was intermittent and father not fully engaged fared less well ( i.e. while child global development improved parents interrupted child’s treatment without allowing time for ending the work with the therapist) than the case where the parents, despite their individual traumas, had engaged consistently in the therapeutic work. Dramatic improvement in the quality of the child-adoptive parents’ relationship and the family dynamic were monitored in form of progress notes throughout the treatments. The work was done on private basis, no evaluation measures have been used other than regular supervision with senior CPTs colleagues and detailed analysis of parallel themes that emerged in the therapy of the child with those present in the work with the adoptive parents. I wonder whether there are factors that might contribute to boosting resilience in this group of adopted children (i.e. exposure to mother tongue other than that of the adoptive parents; diverse race/ethnic trait in the child; living in –between- two or more Countries due to parents etc.) combined with the setting and the preferred language used by therapist and the client/s during the treatment. Best wishes, Elena Mardegan Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist B.A.(Hon.), M.A. (Distinction), M.Psy Psych, MACP, BPC, TSP ________________________________ From: Claudia Milena Capella Sepúlveda <ccapella@u.uchile.cl> To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org Sent: Tuesday, 31 March 2015, 15:25 Subject: Re: CaFTR Research with looked after children / children in foster care Hi I am sorry, to reply so late. I want to comment about a recent small qualitative study that one of my master students did interviewing adolescents that are in residential care, who were sexually abused in childhood, and successfully finished a psychotherapeutic intervention due this experience. Interestingly, and related with what Fisher’s paper proposes, adolescents show remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. In the research of my student, Gretchen Beiza, done in Chile, adolescents could give new meaning to the sexual abuse experience and say they overcame it, being psychotherapy helpful for this. However, they not only have to face the sexual abuse during therapy, but also, the distance from their families, which make more difficult the process. In these cases, for having positive outcomes, it was key the role of a good therapeutic alliance, and also the possibility of having other important relationships (friends, professionals at the residential care, boyfriends). Best wishes Claudia Capella Department of Psychology University of Chile 2015-03-10 10:26 GMT-03:00 Geoffrey Goodman <Geoffrey.Goodman@liu.edu<mailto:Geoffrey.Goodman@liu.edu>>: Yes, I believe parental work on changing their own attachment patterns and improving mentalization should be key features of preparing birth parents to resume their parental duties if reunification with the infant is the goal. Geoff Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA, CST, CSAT-S, CMAT-S Associate Professor Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Long Island University 720 Northern Blvd. Brookville, NY 11548 (516) 299-4277 http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm ________________________________________ From: list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org> [list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org>] on behalf of alison roy [alison.roy@talktalk.net<mailto:alison.roy@talktalk.net>] Sent: Monday, March 09, 2015 7:24 PM To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org> Subject: Re: CaFTR Research with looked after children / children in foster care Dear Colleagues This is most helpful in thinking about adoption and how many of those we work with in a CAMHS adoption project seem to fare much better after work with the parental couple or where there is a multi-treatment approach including interventions which focus on the parent’s attachment styles. Best wishes Alison Alison Roy alison.roy@talktalk.net<mailto:alison.roy@talktalk.net> 07801803579 > On 9 Mar 2015, at 16:59, Geoffrey Goodman <Geoffrey.Goodman@liu.edu<mailto:Geoffrey.Goodman@liu.edu>> wrote: > > What is most interesting to me is what the Fisher article doesn't say about changes in pattens of attachment organization in infants placed in foster care. Specifically, Dozier and her colleagues (Dozier, Stovall, Albus, & Bates, 2001) found that infants placed in foster care even after 18 months reorganized their attachment behavior around the emotional availability of their new caregivers. This is hopeful news that should have been emphasized in the Fisher article. > > Geoff > > Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA, CST, CSAT-S, CMAT-S > Associate Professor > Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program > Long Island University > 720 Northern Blvd. > Brookville, NY 11548 > (516) 299-4277 > http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm > ________________________________________ > From: list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org> [list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org>] on behalf of Nick Midgley [nickmidgley@btconnect.com<mailto:nickmidgley@btconnect.com>] > Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2015 12:17 PM > To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org<mailto:caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org> > Subject: CaFTR Research with looked after children / children in foster care > > Dear CaFTR colleagues > > Some of you may remember that the CaFTR steering group (led by Katharina Weitkamp) conducted an online survey, to guage current research activity and priorities among us for future research, as well as for the activities of CaFTR itself. I'm attaching a summary of the findings, which Katharina has prepared. > > One question we asked was about research priorities for the future, and a number of people identified research looking at therapeutic interventions for children in foster care (looked after children). With that in mind, I'm posting a recent review article, by Philip Fisher, looking at adoption, fostering and the needs of looked after children. We would like to suggest that members of this e-group might like to read this paper and use it as the basis for a discussion / exchange of ideas about research with this population. We'd be interested to hear about your own research activities in this field, or your responses to the Fisher paper, or other thoughts you have on this topic. We would like to suggest that this topic could remain 'open' between now and the end of March. > > Please do feel free to continue to post on other topics in the meanwhile, including questions or updates about your own work. But if you do, please be sure to change the title in the 'Subject' line, so that we can separate out different discussion threads. > > Thanks - and looking forward to hearing what people have to say! > > Best wishes, > > Nick Midgley (on behalf of the CaFTR steering group). -- Claudia Capella S. Académica Departamento de Psicología Universidad de Chile
