Parental alcohol or drug problems affect at least 1 in 30 children in the UK, impacting children in so many different ways that the effects are hard to categorise.
Without intervention, young children tend to blame themselves and develop a highly negative self image. They may seek to become "the perfect child" or take on the role of the "scapegoat".
Parents with alcohol or drug problems frequently have experienced neglect or abuse themselves in their early life. They are also more likely to be perpetrators domestic abuse, a major cause of complex trauma in children. There is a strong taboo around parental alcohol and drug issues, leaving individuals often without support.
As therapeutic professionals, we can offer support in both exploring the parents' and young peoples' own experiences, and helping them to cross the void between them. Using creative methods, such as in dramatherapy, we can address issues in a non-intrusive way, utilising archetypal images, symbols and stories in an embodied way to promote deep and lasting transformation. Professionals can help by creating space for a different story, one that is strong enough to incorporate, process and re-frame feelings of shame, trauma, loss and betrayal.
In this training we will look at:
Working with parents to help them talk about drug and alcohol problems to young children
The role of the creative imagination in working with young children and adolescents in therapy
Working with domestic abuse - how trauma can activate the negative imagination
A deep dive into research that looks at working with young women with maternal alcohol problems
How to work through and with counter transference in teams.
A look at an archetypal-imaginal approach to dramatherapy - prioritising images, and working with them in an integrated way using embodiment and story.
When to work with images in a non intrusive way, when to be direct, and the value of working with images in a directive way.
Toby Chown
Toby Chown is a dramatherapist, writer and storyteller from Brighton and Hove. He is the author of two books of poetry "Haunted Evaporations" and "Into the Dreaming Dark: 33 Poems of Imaginal Ecology". He has 13 years clinical experience working with children and families affected by alcohol and drug problems and is on the editorial board of the Climate Psychology Alliance's Journal Explorations.