Theory

Many of the children who attend our school have experienced different forms of trauma at different ages and stages of their development. Dr Bruce Perry has suggested that the way to repair developmental trauma is to work with the child’s brain in a sequential way, working first with the primitive brain, then with the limbic brain and then with the cortical brain. Please see the diagram that follows which we have adapted from The Beacon House Therapeutic Services and Trauma Team to show how we follow our trauma informed therapeutic service.

For example: Firstly, a child whose primitive brain has not developed healthily, a person-centred approach, which focusses on brain stem, sensory regulative and somatic based therapy will be adopted, preferably alongside a key adult to strengthen their attachment, using polyvagal informed methods of working with a child. We will first help a child to feel safe without expecting them to participate in emotional or cognitive work that that stage.

Secondly, play and creative therapies can help repair the limbic brain, because these approaches are effective in working with emotions. Research shows that this type of play can help a child to access the limbic area of the brain where traumatic memories can be stored. This Libra School allows a child to make sense of their experiences and rewrite their own narrative, which can begin to contribute to calming their amygdala-driven fight/flight response to perceived threats. The effectiveness of this approach stems from its ability to help children look back and make sense of the root of their trauma.

Thirdly, compassion based cognitive-behavioural therapy can be used when working with the cortical brain when children are able to think cognitively and start making sense of their experiences, alongside solution focussed approaches, Transactional Analysis and Psychoeducation. We also draw on the work of Dr Ross Greene’s collaborative approach to help children work with any difficulties they experience with their executive skills.

We use and select the following therapies for each child depending on where we feel they sit within the Trauma informed Neurosequential model:

Play therapy is a method of meeting and responding to the mental health needs of children, the psychotherapeutic approach is used to help children freely express repressed thoughts and emotions through play. A mixture of non-direct and direct approaches is used to help children learn to express themselves in healthier ways, become more respectful and empathic, and discover new and more positive ways to solve problems.

Creative Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – provides the child and parent with psychoeducation through play and the creative arts, teaching why the child has learnt to respond with certain behaviours.

Somatic management training uses play and creative arts to help the child regulate their sensory system through sensory exercises, visualisations and meditation.

Cognitive Restructuring helps the child recognise their irrational, unhelpful, intrusive thoughts through play and drama and helps them to replace these thoughts with correct thoughts, which in turn can encourage change in emotional and behavioural responses.

Exposure involves completing social experiments with their carers to expose themselves to fears and replace negative behavioural responses with positive ones.

Dyadic Developmental informed Psychotherapy is a therapy and parenting approach that uses what we know about attachment and trauma to help children and families with their relationships, this supports parents with responding to the child’s behaviour in a trauma informed way.

Ecotherapy and Animal Assisted Therapy is effective for children who experience neurodiversity and or have sensory processing disorder. Their environment plays a large part on why their behaviour is challenging, working in nature and alongside an emotional support animal can help towards regulating a child’s behaviour.