Filling Your Child’s Cup During the Early Attachment Process – HPP 13

Stephanie Dueger, MA, PhD

How much time in your life have you spent thinking about your early childhood? From a neuroscience perspective we actually can’t remember that many specific details before age seven, meaning the cognitive narrative is more amorphous from the very early years in our development.

This leaves many unanswered questions about the mystery of our first few years in life. But those first years of development are extremely relevant from an attachment perspective for future relationships, resiliency, mental health and the ability to reach your potential.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Dueger is going to talk about what it looks like to confront the beginning of the attachment process when it’s occurring in infants and toddlers, rather than looking at the regressive psychotherapies once the imprints have already been established for decades.

This episode will open up an new look into the intricacies of attachment and bonding during infancy, and why it’s so important to have a thorough understanding of that process. You’re going to get to learn about what psychotherapy looks like with a child in the first few years of their life and how to help repair any attachment issues that can occur at that stage. You’ll also gain an understanding on how an early-childhood therapist removes themselves enough to promote healthy bonding between the parent and child.

Show Notes:

Removing the therapist from the attachment process with an infant and parent [8:30]

The neuroscience behind the first years of development and the attachment process [22:00]

Signs of healthy and unhealthy attachment in infants [25:50]

Parental influence on attachment issues versus child developmental impasses [30:00]

Are children born with attachment struggles [32:00]

How to work with adults with pre-verbal attachment wounds [37:00]

A personal story about the birthing process [40:00]

Stephanie Dueger, MA, PhD

Dr. Stephanie Dueger has been providing psychotherapy in private practice for more than a decade. She works gently and respectfully with individuals, couples, and families with young children from an attachment-based and somatically-informed lens. Dr. Dueger received her MA from Naropa University in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, with an emphasis in Somatic and Perinatal Psychology. She is currently the Book Editor for the Journal for the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health. Dr. Dueger has presented at international conferences on prenatal and perinatal psychology and is in the process of completing a book about parenthood. She lives and works in Boulder, CO with her husband and two young daughters. You can visit her website: www.drduegertherapy.com