Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: One foot in the ditch
Chapter 3: Resilience, mismatches and repair
Chapter 4: Attachment, and jumpy untrusting kids
Chapter 5: Stuart: growing an ‘inner executive’ and a mind to think thoughts
Chapter 6: Left hemispheres rule, feelings avoided. Jenny and Edward
Chapter 7: Neglected children: why it is easy yet dangerous to neglect neglect
Chapter 8: Bringing up the bodies: body awareness and easeful selves
Chapter 9: Trauma and treading carefully
Chapter 10: Angels and devils: sadism and violence in children
Chapter 11: Altruism and compassion: how they can be turned on and off
Chapter 12: Addiction, tech and the web: new dangers hijacking old systems
Chapter 13: Freeing the scapegoat by containing not blaming: thoughts on schools-based therapeutic work (with Becky Hall)
Chapter 14: Concluding thoughts
Graham Music is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics in London, UK, and an adult psychotherapist in private practice who teaches, supervises and lectures internationally.
"Always confronting the toughest societal issues and contemporary
clinical debates, Music’s style is persuasive rather than
polemical. His famous candour on his own internal dialogue in the
consulting room makes an important book humorous and highly
readable." – Gabrielle Brown, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy"…an
easily digestible book of stories that are a pleasure to read." -
Louise O’ Higgins, Bulletin of Child Psychotherapy"This is a book
for those who work with traumatized children and their parents to
read and
re-read, and refer to as a guide, a companion on the journey to
become open-hearted,
courageous people capable of meeting others in their depths." – Dr
Sarah Sutton, Journal of Child Psychotherapy"I believe this is a
ground-breaking book that should be read by child and adult
therapists, mental health workers and all involved in professions
that are linked to child development. More than a way to do
therapeutic work, it is a guide to understanding how our minds
develop, the interaction between minds and bodies and the
centrality of relationships in human life…What is almost unique is
the way that he holds the psychoanalytic understanding as his
foundation but then proceeds to draw on attachment theory,
neurobiology, trauma- informed research, compassion-focused therapy
and mindfulness to adapt to the particular needs of each
child."
- Dr Jo Stubley, British Journal of Psychotherapy"I recommend this
book for anyone interested in the mental and emotional health of
young people. It is the kind of thoughtful story from the front
line of care which both inspires but also some important questions
about how we create the conditions for helping those with the
greatest distress and most challenging presentations."
- Paul Jenkins , Chief Executive, Tavistock Centre"Dr Music is
certainly one of the best and probably the most deep thinking child
psychotherapists in the world. This beautiful book distills decades
of neuro-clinical thinking, interpreting children’s and young
people’s experience and behavior in terms of the most applicable
and scientifically credible models of mind. For those who wish to
understand clinical phenomena and through this improve their
clinical work, this book is a must. For those who want to marvel
and learn from the writing of a master clinician, this book is
amongst the best you are likely to encounter. And for the few who
want to do both… this is an incredible opportunity. I could not
recommend a book more strongly."
- Professor Peter Fonagy OBE, Head of the Division of Psychology
and Language Sciences at UCL; Chief Executive of the Anna Freud
National Centre for Children and Families, London, UK"Of all life
forms on this planet human infants are by far the most dependent on
the love and care they receive from their parents. The need for
caring can extend well into the adolescent years and beyond. Not
only do parents protect them but they shape the maturation of their
brain development, the robustness of their immune system and even
the expression of their genes. As an international, leading
exponent of attachment theory and its applications in child
psychotherapy, there could be no better guide than Dr Music to
reveal the role of attachment as both a source of trauma and its
recovery. Bringing the reader many years of therapeutic insight and
experience, with a clarity of exposition of fascinating and
important case studies, this is a wonderful addition to the
literature. All therapists and other professionals working with
children would benefit enormously from this book."
- Professor Paul Gilbert OBE, author of The Compassionate Mind and
Living like Crazy"Graham Music has done it again. This is a
much-needed book and the clinical work is profoundly moving. Music
is able to blend his own deeply felt empathic capacities with a
comprehensive grasp of the latest developmental and neuroscientific
research in a highly readable form. He is a real thinker and all of
us in the field of child mental health, and for that matter,
learning disability, will be extremely grateful for it. He really
gets, and uses, all the new work on the body, too."
- Anne Alvarez, consultant, child and adolescent psychotherapist,
Tavistock Clinic; author of Live Company and The Thinking Heart"If
you are looking for a book that tells you what attachment-based,
neuroscience-informed psychotherapy looks like in practice, look no
further. Graham Music’s wonderful book conveys the process
brilliantly. It demonstrates how an attuned and compassionate
relationship is the key to psychological growth, a process that
might sound easy yet is in practice a demanding art that draws on
all the psychotherapist’s resources to respond at the right level,
at the right moment. He is particularly good on the
psychotherapist’s own struggles to extend compassion to himself and
to stay ‘alive and present’ in difficult therapeutic
relationships."
- Sue Gerhardt, psychotherapist; co-founder of the Oxford Parent
Infant Project; and author of the bestselling book Why Love
Matters"Graham Music takes us on a journey with him in his new
book, Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Growth Using Attachment
Theory, Psychoanalysis and Neurobiology. From his psychoanalytic
‘bedrock’ Graham grows flowers, many of which include his
reflections on the thoughts of therapeutic mentors and theorists as
well as on therapeutic implications from findings of attachment and
neurobiology research. Yet the most vibrant flowers involve the
moments that he spends coming to know the minds and hearts of young
people and discovering the paths with them that will lead from
trauma to hope. In this work, Graham invites us into his
therapeutic space to be present with him – with both his mind and
heart – as he is present with these hurt and courageous young
people. To read this work is to enter into a conversation with
Graham, to wonder with him about the meanings of what Molly,
Michael, Samantha and the others are doing so to better understand
their unique experiences and find the one-of-a-kind therapeutic
intervention that will do them the most good. We share with Graham
his wobbles and confusion, recoveries and unfoldings, as he finds a
way of relating with each child that may well create safety,
healing, and integration. These conversations, readily available to
us as we read, will bring Graham with us into our therapeutic space
and enrich our work with the minds and hearts of the children we
are coming to know and care about, regardless of the nature of the
bedrock upon which we stand."
- Daniel A. Hughes, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who specializes
in child abuse and neglect, attachment, foster care, and adoption.
He is a prolific author and actively trains other therapists in the
model of treatment known as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy,
both within the United States and in other countries"This is a
wonderful book for all working with children and for all levels of
child therapists as both an introduction and senior tonic. It is
written with authenticity and flexibility, Music using his learning
with a light but respectful touch, the writing driven by the
children, not the theory, educating in a really containing
way."
- Valerie Sinason, Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies,
President of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability (IPD)
and Hon Consultant Psychotherapist for the University of Cape Town
Child Guidance Clinic"There is lots to admire throughout, but what
particularly inspires me is the freedom to dispense with the
traditional practice of strait-jacketing feelings within the
confines of the concept counter transference. Instead he has found
the freedom to be himself."
-Juliet Hopkins"Overall, Nurturing Children is a wonderful book,
and one I know I will return to in the future to reread for
relevant clients. There is a great deal that I will take from it
into my own practice, and Music’s detailed references have also
added to my ever-growing list of further reading – including
compassion-focussed therapy for trauma work and core-complex theory
for adolescents. I was inspired by his reflections on how essential
his own regular mindfulness and yoga practices are to supporting
the development of self-awareness and self-regulation in his
work."
-Alice Harper, Child and Adolescent TherapistIn this important
book, which speaks to both beginning and seasoned therapists,
Graham Music reminds us of the common humanity shared by therapists
and the children they treat, and that at day’s end, it is the
commitment to an honest, unflinching, and compassionate
relationship that ultimately can provide healing.-Seth Aronson
(2020): Nurturing Children, Journal of Infant, Child, andAdolescent
Psychotherapy,
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |