Mindful Attachment: An Organic Way to Work with Children Who Have Been Through Complex Trauma and Neglect

Small children, due to development limitations, use nonverbal communication over verbal communication, especially when they have experienced traumatic events. As more advanced verbal communication takes years to develop, most children rely on their first language of sensations, movement and emotions when communicating to and with others. This creates obvious challenges when many therapeutic modalities heavily rely on verbal communication. By examining mindfulness from a human bonding lens, one can understand that there are many functions of mindfulness that are better understood from a neurobiologicalaffect-regulation perspective than from a simple relaxation stance. By translating what is known about mindfulness into the realm of attachment, human bonding and care for our young, we can understand that mindfulness can also be seen as a skill involved in social engagement. This skill can then be utilized to effectively work with traumatized infants and small children. Mindful Attachment is intended to bridge the gap between nonverbal and verbal expression in order to help children through overwhelming and traumatic events