Trauma & Dissociation in ChildrenTrauma & Dissociation in Children

"In order to investigate a case of suspected child abuse or litigate that case, you have to not only understand the legal issues, which are complex enough, but one really has to understand something about child development, about the impact of traumatic experiences on children, in order to understand how they react to it and to understand how we react to them." John E. B. Myers, JD. Abuse and neglect can have profound effects on children's neurological development, and on their behaviors. The often devastating impacts of trauma on children's sense of self, on their ability to regulate their emotions, and on their capacity to talk about what has happened to them can pose major challenges for child protective services workers, law enforcement investigators, forensic interviewers, and prosecutors. In this new video series, presented by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, leaders in the trauma field come together with experts on interviewing children and prosecuting abuse cases to give child protection professionals a grounding in the psychological impacts of abuse, and provide them with better tools for working with traumatized children. The series includes recent research on children's recantation and inconsistent accounts. The presenters include Bessel van der Kolk, Christine Courtois, Kathy Steele, Fran Waters, Richard Kluft, Victor Vieth, John E. B. Myers, and Thomas Lyon.