Attuned Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Non-abused, High-functioning People Living Outside of Time

This book takes a painstaking look at developmental trauma as it manifests in group, individual, and combined psychotherapies, tracking the growth of non-abused individuals who have courageously addressed overwhelming childhood experiences to make sense of the chaos in their lives.


The cumulative impact of repetitive stress, fear, and shame in childhood wreaks havoc on the developing brain, resulting in a life-long vulnerability to anxiety, despair and dissociative moments that are often described as developmental trauma. Where adverse childhood experiences can be overlooked by therapists, this book focuses specifically on the profound suffering of high-functioning private-practice patients who manifest developmental trauma from chronic shock, shame, and neglect, thereby attending to clinical processes as they affect an often-overlooked group. In so doing, Adams offers a synthesis of diverse theoretical worlds in her study of adaptations to cumulative trauma, namely, relational psychoanalysis, the British school of object relations, trauma theory, neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, developmental psychopathology, and attachment theory.


Using richly detailed clinical material, this book provides invaluably clear examples to illustrate the effects of disorganized states in infancy, making it essential for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists working with traumatized patients.