Treating the Traumatized Child: A Step-By-Step Family Systems Approach

"This book builds upon my early work and the work and others by offering a comprehensive guide to practitioners interested in facing and helping to heal trauma and manage the drama systemically with a special focus on children and adolescents. The FST Model is a contribution to the fields of trauma, family sciences, and human development practice." --Charles R. Figley, PhD; Kurzweg Chair in Disaster Mental Health at Tulane University in New Orleans

This is the first book that addresses trauma treatment for child and adolescents using a Family Systems Trauma (FST) model which goes beyond individual therapy to include the child and their entire family.

Co-written by a renowned family therapist who created the Parenting with Love and Limits(R) model, it delivers a research-based, step-by-step approach that incorporates the child's immediate family along with their extended family to treat the traumatized child or adolescent.

Using a "stress chart," the child or adolescent's trauma symptoms are quickly identified. This strategy guides therapists in accurately diagnosing root causes of the child's trauma and culminates in the creation of co-created "wound playbooks" to heal trauma in both the child as well as other family members.

Additional helpful features include extensive case examples, a menu of trauma techniques, wound playbook examples, evaluation forms, client handouts, and other practical tools to provide the therapist with a complete guide to implementing this approach. Child and family therapists, social workers, mental health counselors, and psychologists working in a variety of settings will find this book a valuable resource.

Key Features:

• Provides a step-by-step, practice focused, time-limited model
• Uses a family systems approach for addressing child and adolescent trauma--the only book of its kind
• Includes useful tools such as checklists, client handouts, and evaluation forms

Scott P. Sells, PhD, MSW, LCSW, LMFT, is former tenured Professor of Social Work, Savannah State University, Savannah, GA and Associate Professor at UNLV in Las Vegas, NV. Dr. Sells is the author of two best-selling books, Treating the Tough Adolescent: A Family-Based, Step-by-Step Guide (1998), and Parenting Your Out-of-Control Teenager: 7 Steps to Reestablish Authority and Reclaim Love (2001). He has over 20 publications in such periodicals as Psychotherapy Networker, Contemporary Corrections, Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, Professional Issues in Criminal Justice, Family Process, and Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, plus book chapters in the Handbook of Family Therapy Research Methods (1996) and Social Worker's Desk Reference, 2/E (2008.) Dr. Sells has extensive experience as a keynote speaker for the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, the National Association of Social Workers the Southeastern Psychological Association, and others. He was invited to be one of six expert presenters at the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy's prestigious Summer Institutes as well as the world-renowned Cape Cod Institute. Dr. Sells is currently the founder and model developer of an evidence based model know Parenting with Love and Limits(R) (PLL). PLL is being used by both juvenile justice and child welfare in over 14 states and in Europe.

Ellen Souder, MA, LPCC-S, holds a Master's Degree in Professional Counseling and is a gifted family therapist, trainer and public speaker. She has traveled extensively over the past 10 years, conducting seminars and trainings for professional clinicians throughout the United States and Europe. Ellen worked alongside Dr. Scott Sells in the development of the evidence-based Parenting with Love and Limits(R) treatment model which encompasses the FST Treatment model. Her personal childhood experience with trauma as well as experience in providing treatment for traumatized youth and families through the years provided unique insight in the co-authoring of this book. Ellen currently serves as Vice President of Parenting with Love and Limits (PLL) and has overseen the clinical implementation of PLL and the FST Model in over 50 agencies or organizations throughout the United States and Europe.