Attachment informed approaches to calming anxiety in children and youth (tamariki/rangatahi)

We certainly live in alarming times and our tamariki and rangatahi are showing signs of increased anxiety and distress. To bring our young one’s alarm levels down it is necessary for them to feel safe. Gabor Mate expresses this succinctly: ‘safety is not the absence of threat but the presence of connection’. Gabor also endorses highly the work of developmental psychologist Dr Gordon Neufeld, with whom he has co-written the book, Hold on to your kids. In this seminar we will use Neufeld’s Attachment-based developmental approach (presented in the first workshop Applying Attachment Theory to Clinical Practice) to examine the underlying dynamics behind anxiety, how it impacts the body, the mind and relationships, and how to bring tamariki/rangatahi to psychological, physical and emotional rest.