What Helps When Children and Families Struggle

Written for both families and clinicians, What Helps When Children and Families Struggle offers an introduction to attachment theory as it relates to family life. The authors weave a simple and clear discussion of what families can do to support strong connections and what to do when things have fallen off track.

Consistent with a relational focus on mental health the authors strongly advocate the use of family therapy as the entry point to mental health services when a family member is struggling. Through the use of many illustrations and metaphors, the text is a highly practical guide for the ups and downs of family life.

This text offers a broad overview of attachment informed strategies to support positive family dynamics. As well as discussion of family focused interventions related to a range of complicated dynamics and situations, including:
a. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
b. Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
c. Loss/Bereavement
d. Marital/Couple Discord
e. During and After Divorce
f. Adoption
g. Physical and Emotional Abuse
h. Managing Trauma
i. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)
j. Gender or Sexuality Questioning in a Child
k. Depression
l. Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder (Disruptive Behavior Disorders)
m. Childhood Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
n. Substance Use Disorder
o. Personality Disorders
p. Psychotic Disorders
q. Eating Disorders
r. Inpatient Psychiatric Care

Dr. Stewart is a senior psychologist specializing in couples and family therapy. He has authored two books on attachment-informed clinical work and consulted in settings from Johns Hopkins to the San Diego Public Schools. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, where together with his co-author, Erin, he teaches family therapy. He co-founded and provided clinical direction for over 20 years to The Collaborative School—an attachment-informed K-12-day treatment program and is director of Family Therapy Vacations, an intensive attachment informed treatment program. John lives in Maine and often works with his wife Janet, a psychiatric nurse, with whom he shares two children and four grandkids.

Dr. Belfort completed medical school in Vermont and adult and child and adolescent psychiatry training programs in Boston in the Harvard Medical School system, and has been a practicing psychiatrist for more than a decade. She is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Training Director at Maine Medical Center. She enjoys teaching family therapy as well as writing and speaking about the impacts of social media on adolescent wellbeing and the complex dynamics of gender and sexuality. She lives in Maine with her husband, two sons, and an energetic boxer, who keep her on her toes.

Elizabeth (Liz) Brenner is a clinical social worker and Director of Therapy Training Boston, which provides post graduate training for mental health professionals. Liz is the primary instructor of TTB's certificate program in family and couple therapy that originated at the Family Institute of Cambridge. She teaches a transtheoretical, sociocultural attuned family systems approach to family work. Liz has worked in group homes, child psychiatric inpatient, residential, home-based and private practice settings. Liz is the co-director of the CHA/Harvard Treating Couples Conference and a teaching associate for Harvard Medical School providing training for staff at Cambridge Health Alliance in the Couple and Family Therapy Program. Growing up with a father affected by bipolar disorder taught her much about individual and family resilience.