This conversation will be about the neglected clinical population of adults with a history of the developmental trauma of childhood neglect. These people have truly been largely unseen and un-helped in our field. Although most of us by now have heard of the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experience Survey) conducted by Kaiser in 1995-1997, it took until quite recently for the larger psychotherapy field to even know of it. Neglect as an adverse experience has stayed hidden, at great detriment to the large numbers who have slipped through the cracks. Due to the larger ignorance, these individuals do not know themselves, what is “wrong,” or why they feel so bad. They lament, “but nothing happened to me!” which is precisely the problem. So much was missing. Since beginning to discover these issues in 1998, I have been on a mission to learn and teach about them. It is the subject of my new book, released on 8/31/2021, Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice. I call this a conversation because I would like to enlist the attendees’ voices to both speak and ask questions and make for a lively learning experience. I will present for the first hour and invited participation for the final half-hour.
Speaker
Ruth Cohn has been practicing Marriage and Family therapy, specializing in childhood trauma in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1990. She is also a Certified Sex Therapist, Board Certified in Neurofeedback and Certified in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, and Imago Relationship Therapy. She is the author of two books: Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples with Histories of Childhood Trauma and Neglect, published in 2010; and her recent release Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice; and numerous articles related to trauma. She is also an avid artisan home cheesemaker and sourdough baker! She lives in San Francisco with her husband of 30 years and her beloved old dog, Angel.