The Simple Guide to Understanding Shame in Children: What it is and How to Help by Betsy de Thierry 

Betsy de Thierry has such an accessible way of explaining complex issues. ‘The Simple Guide to Understanding Shame in Children’ is a ‘must read’ for adults of all ages, parents, carers and professionals working with children and their families: in other words for everyone!
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From explaining the difference between shame and guilt, ‘....guilt says you made a mistake, shame says you are the mistake’ (p17), de Thierry moves on to demonstrate how shame lurks everywhere  - in our families, in our schools, in our society, in religion, in social media. Often used by adults - consciously and unconsciously -  to motivate children shame does  the exact opposite impacting negatively on brain, body and self sometimes cripplingly so.

The book weaves theory, research and the impact of shame seamlessly,  with both vignettes and also self-reflection points built into every chapter. 
Shame-based symptoms and behaviours are well explained.
Being shamed or feeling shame are unavoidable consequences of being human;  the unhealthy and toxic impact of shame is avoidable.

Betsy de Thierry provides practical information for everyone on how to promote healing from shame – the message is:  ‘’...the way to help the child is through understanding, empathy, kindness and emotional connection,  fun  and laughter’ (p81).  

An essential, informative and hopeful read, highly recommended. 

Edwina Grant
Chair, Scottish Attachment in Action
Edwina is an independent chartered Educational Psychologist and certified DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) practitioner and trainer.

“A Therapeutic Treasure Deck of Sentence Completion and Feelings Cards" 
(Therapeutic Treasures Collection) 
by Dr Karen Treisman
 
When I first received the Therapeutic Treasure Deck and had a quick flick through the cards, I have to confess I felt a wee bit cautious. 
​On reflection,  I think perhaps this was because I was busy with other stuff at work and that I have seen many different versions of “feelings cards” over the 23 years I’ve been a Social Worker.  So decided I would proceed with my cautious part! 

I would also just say that I haven’t (so far) read Dr Treisman’s “Therapeutic Treasure Box” book.  However, I was reassured that it wasn’t necessary to do so in order to use the Deck.

So actually, all it took was to read through the instruction booklet accompanying the Deck.  I began to feel rather curious about the possibilities of the cards, replacing my previous caution.

I like the cards themselves – the feel of them and the illustrations - I found myself wondering about children who would experience the Deck as a means of helping them connect with and communicate their feelings and story.  I quickly found myself connecting the application of the cards to DDP/PACE and Theraplay.

As a Social Worker in a small Family Placement Team, my role involves supporting families to build connections and attachment relationships with the children they care for and parent.  And it is important we acknowledge that parenting and caring for children with developmental trauma and attachment difficulties is not easy, particularly when children are resistant to our attempts. 

I chose to use the Deck with a 10 year old child to see how I could use them to connect.  I was curious - would they like them?   What sense would they make of them?  Would using the cards help them feel safe enough to communicate their feelings, hopes, wishes and fears?  Would it help me as a worker understand what they were communicating?  Lots of questions.

This child was immediately curious about the cards.   She was able to engage with them and recognise many of the feelings images. The cards provided opportunities for conversations about the less usual ones.  Exploring the cards, the child was able to verbalise what was going on in the image eg how is the swan keeping the cygnets safe?  Why do they need to be safe?   What might make them “not safe”?  She was able to reflect using her own words about when she feels safe and not safe, and what makes her feel safe when she is frightened.

She appeared relaxed about being able to choose and talk about what was on the cards.  This then lead us into talking about eg what the animal was feeling which flowed into how and when the child might experience this emotion.  It was helpful to use the sentence completion cards alongside the feelings cards which helped to fill in gaps in the stories.  Whilst using the cards I was mindful of the PACE attitude – using Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy and, where appropriate, playfulness.

One of my colleagues used the cards with a 14yr old who finds it difficult to explore and talk about her feelings.  The worker found the cards helpful both for the young person, who was able to choose the cards she connected best with, and also for the worker in helping to notice also which cards the young person was avoiding.  The young person was able to check out with the worker what they (the worker) would feel/think/do or say.  The young person was also able to reflect on what her parent might feel.   There was exploration with the young person as to what they were experiencing/feeling eg a year ago, and what is different now – opening up further conversations and about what might happen in the future.   This young person finds it difficult to sustain conversations, so, with the cards, she felt she had some control over how long to spend on each and how much reflection was manageable for her.

The worker in this case felt that using the cards took the pressure off the young person in having to sustain an intense, one-to-one, conversation with another.   This particular young person asked if the worker could bring the cards back again.  The worker’s experience was that the cards opened the possibility of further explorations next time they meet.

The Therapeutic Treasure Deck lends itself to working with individuals, groups and families and it connects well with other approaches.  As I experienced, they can be used effectively alongside the attitude of PACE (Playfulness; Acceptance; Curiosity; Empathy).

The child or young person can have some control over which cards they wish to look at and talk about, without the pressure of having to answer direct questions.  They can control the pace, the choice of card, how much they wish to talk about, and how to connect with their own experiences, which is especially helpful for children with a limited emotional vocabulary.  I like the idea also of encouraging the child or young person to expand on what appears on the cards by drawing, painting, colouring and using other media like playdoh. 

Using the cards opens up all sorts of creative possibilities of how to use them to connect and communicate effectively with the child.  They can be tailored to the individual child or young person’s needs.  They help us to go at the child’s pace. 
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Using the cards keeps conversations open and engaged, letting the child or young person know you are interested in them.  You are noticing what they find tricky and you are alongside them, acknowledging with them that some of this stuff is hard.  Using the cards provides the worker with a raft of information about the child without using checklists or questions – including why they might be avoiding particular cards.  It helps us as workers notice what might be under the surface - what’s behind a child’s fears and anxieties and presenting behaviours, and what might help the child to manage the things they find hard to manage. 

The Therapeutic Treasure Deck creates opportunities to help children connect and make sense of their own story and to begin be open to the possibility that the adults who care for them can help them and accept and love them.   I will be sharing the Deck with my colleagues in the Family Placement Team here as well as generally within Children’s Services.

In conclusion - I have moved from having a rather large cautious part to having developed a rather inspired part!   I am in fact a total convert!  I really like the Therapeutic Treasure Deck and will most definitely be using it with the children and families I support.  So my advice would be – pick them up and give it a go!

Shona Thain
Social Worker (Family Placement Team)
and Adoptive Parent

The Boy Who Built a Wall around Himself
by Ali Redford, illustrated by Kara Simpson.
 
This little book is intended for 4-9 year olds but carries a message for people of all ages.

Written by adoptive mother, Ali Redford, it tells the story of “Boy” who, finding “everything  scarily wrong”, builds a protective wall around himself because no one seems to  care.

Fortunately for Boy, there is help at hand in the form of “Someone Kind “who persists in engaging with him and helps to break the wall down.

The text of the book is perfectly complemented with illustrations by Kara Simpson who captures, in comic book format drawings, the isolation felt by Boy and the playful and imaginative attempts by Someone Kind to help him. The use of “Boy” and “Someone Kind”, instead of names, allows any child listening to the story to relate to it at their own level.

There are messages in this book for all those involved in the care of traumatised children.  Firstly, that helping children to heal from past experiences takes persistence and time, that for a child to give up their “wall” can be very scary for them and that the way forward is through a positive and consistent relationship with a secure adult.  Dan Hughes would approve of the way “Someone Kind engages with the child in a playful way!  Most importantly the book gives a message of hope that, in time, children can heal from past experiences.
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Talking about “walls”, both physical and metaphorical, seems topical these days! There are lessons that can be drawn from this useful little book - that talking is better than silence and building bridges more helpful than building walls.  This book would offer encouragement to any child hearing Boy’s story and to parents / carers as well.  Although small in size it gives a big message!

Star rating ****
Heather Drysdale
(Systemic Psychotherapist/Adoption and Fostering Consultant)

There is no better guide to how children develop their rich emotional, relational, and creative lives than is the wisdom of Colwyn Trevarthen, Jaak Panksepp and Phyllis Booth.  In this book, all three make it clear that reciprocal play--play that involves joy and delight, magic and music, often rough and tumble, always engaging in the back and forth of spontaneous encounters and movements--is a central component in the full development of children.  
            
In the first chapter Trevarthen and Panksepp summarize clearly their view of human development:  “We are born with a moving body, ready to share its rhythms and melodies of joy or anguish.  Our vitality is by nature that of a dancer or musician, and this intelligence in movement gives us signals to be shared. (p. 39).”   In the Forward, Booth gives us a brief glimpse of how Winnicott saw play between the child and psychotherapist as being at the heart of the creative changes that such meetings attempted to foster.   Play too, is the central core of Theraplay, a treatment modality developed by Booth that moves play from the focus on the symbolic play of traditional therapies to the reciprocal, expressive, movements of delight and engagement that occurs within Theraplay between the child and therapist and the child and parent. 
            
Attachment theory and research stresses the importance of safety that is established in the infant-parent relationship within which the young child learns within joint activities with the parent to regulate their affective states and begin to make sense of the world.  The reciprocal, moment-to-moment engagement--often characterized by music and  rhythms that have been called “the dance of attunement”-- between infant and parent is the foundation for the child becoming safe to explore the larger world of relationships with peers and developing interests.  Through reciprocal play, the rich inner world into the minds and hearts of others--family and friends--becomes open to the child.
            
When children have had the misfortune of developing a troubled or disorganized attachment with their original caregivers, these children need to develop relationships with their new caregivers that feature the presence of comfort (for attachment) and joy (for companionship).  Repetitive nonverbal communications that express empathy, delight, interest, and wonder are central in these children learning that they are able to trust these caregivers.  Joint activities that involve music and dance, spontaneous intentional movements requiring a shared focus and cooperation are important ways to engage these children to develop their trust.  Similar activities with their peers are often crucial both in helping the child to both return to the past with joint activities that they had needed but did not receive, as well as moving into the future into groups of friends. 
            
Inclusion, Play, and Empathy offers a great variety of ways to become engaged with children who have had difficult beginnings while guiding them to participate in those spontaneous, joint activities of creative play that they desperately need.  Music and dance, but also all sorts of shared intentions and activities, are presented in this book as ways that will facilitate children’s neuroaffective development in group settings.  Therapists from many countries and all persuasions share their insights attained through their creative therapies that are likely to offer ideas for engaging children to both parents and professionals alike.
 
These programs cannot replace the child’s need to develop safe relationships with their primary caregivers characterized by comfort and joy.  However they may well complement such relationships and, in fact, the child’s participation in these crucial experiences of play with peers, maybe actually help them to become more open to exploring a closer relationship with their caregivers.  The therapies presented in this well-edited book are excellent examples of “therapies that enhance the deep creative and restorative powers of human nature (p.49).”

Dan Hughes PhD
​Founder of DDP