I am available to do attachment therapy in North Carolina.
It is possible to hear those words from your child...
By Debra Tatum, MA, LPC
It is true that your child might say "Mommy" rather than "Mummy", but the accent does not change the powerful impact of hearing your adopted or foster child claim you, really claim you, as "my mommy".
I have been privileged to witness and facilitate the transformation and change that are made possible by the intrinsic healing power of human connection. With the support of focused parenting and therapy, a traumatized child can unlearn the earliest messages of pain and fear. Those messages can be replaced with newly internalized images and feelings of self-worth, trust, and, eventually, genuine love.
Healing the heart of a traumatized child is not easy, not quick, and not simply or instantly gratifying for the adults who are trying to relate to the child. The process is lengthy, challenging, frustrating, and at times heart-breaking. But it can lead to seeing the dark or the blank stare become the glow of a healthy child, and there is no sight more beautiful than a child's genuine smile.
Check our Parents' Reports page to read an update from a family who have recently had therapy!
Professional Disclosure Statement
I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, a member in good standing of the North Carolina Board of Licensed Professional Counselors (contact information: NCBLPC, PO Box 1369, Garner, NC, 27529). I am currently living and working in Boston, MA, and I commute regularly to North Carolina.
My academic background includes five years of accredited social work training (four years undergraduate and one year post graduate), plus a Master's Degree in Counseling and Human Services. In 2000 and 2001 I completed a year-long intensive specialized training program for therapists planning to work with attachment-related issues. By virtue of proximity to this excellent opportunity, I proceeded through the program twice, and have trained under Dan Hughes PhD, Bill Goble PhD, Grek Keck PhD, Joanne May PhD, and John Bergman MA-RDT, as well as other very well established mental health professionals.
I am also a Level II certified EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) practitioner.
My practice is informed, as well, by the trauma-focused work of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, and the attunement-focused work of Dr. Daniel Seigel.
My experience includes ten years of working with children who demonstrate very challenging behaviors associated with post traumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, depressive disorders, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and attentional disorders. My family-based approach also includes therapy and support for parents and siblings and other members of the child's family.
The services I offer include consultation, evaluation, in-home intensive therapy, family therapy, parenting classes and support for families, and education and support for adoptive and foster parents and agencies.
Since 2003, I have traveled extensively between American, Australia, and New Zealand, doing training, consultation, and therapy. The children I have worked with in these countries have included domestic adoptees and foster children, as well as international adoptees from Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, China, Taiwan, and Guatemala. I have provided training within the Adoptions Department of Child and Family Services in Tasmania, Australia. My one day workshop on the basics of the bonding cycle has been so well received that attendance to this has been made a pre-requisite for anyone planning to adopt or foster within that system.
Therapy modalities that I use may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Facilitated attunement
- Psychodynamic narrative
- Story-telling therapy
- EMDR
- Musical ambience
- Creative expressive arts
- Brain Gym
- Fillial therapy
- Dramatherapy
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Rational emotive therapy
- Social skills coaching
- Emotion coaching
- Parenting education
Contact information: I welcome Email inquiries, get in touch at debtatum2000@yahoo.com
