Therapy Services
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EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).
EMDR® is a structured, evidence-based therapy designed to help people recover from trauma and distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR focuses on helping the brain reprocess disturbing memories so they no longer feel overwhelming. It uses guided eye movements or other forms of rhythmic stimulation to help “unlock” traumatic memories and support the brain’s natural healing process.
When distressing memories remain “stuck” in the nervous system, they can continue to cause emotional pain, intrusive thoughts, or physical symptoms — sometimes years after the original event. EMDR helps desensitise these memories and reprocess them in a way that brings relief and resolution.
What can EMDR help with
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Trauma and PTSD
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Anxiety and panic
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Childhood or developmental trauma
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Grief and loss
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Phobias
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Low self-esteem or negative self-beliefs
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What to expect:
EMDR sessions are safe, structured, and led at your pace. You don’t have to talk in detail about the trauma if you don’t want to — the focus is on how it’s stored in your body and mind, and helping you move through it. Over time, clients often report feeling lighter, calmer, and more in control of their emotional world.
£85,00 per hour.
Theraplay® is a child and family treatment designed to enhance attachment, self-esteem, trust in others, and joyful engagement. It is based on the natural patterns of healthy interaction between parent and child, and is personal, physical, and fun. Theraplay® interactions focus on four essential qualities found in parent–child relationships: structure, engagement, nurture, and challenge.
What it can help with:
· Strengthening parent–child relationships
· Enhancing attachment and emotional security
· Building self-esteem and confidence
· Supporting children with trauma or developmental challenges
· Improving emotional and behavioral regulation
Theraplay® What to expect: create an active and emotional connection between the child and parents, resulting in a change to the child’s internal working model — a shift in how the child views themselves, enhancing self-worth and enabling them to perceive themselves as lovable and capable of forming positive, rewarding relationships. Fun activities are used throughout, primarily through play-based interactions.
Various kinds of touch are essential in Theraplay® treatment. Touch is a normal, healthy part of all parent–child interaction and is very important for the healthy development of all children. Theraplay® touch is playful, engaging, and present in many of the surprising and delightful activities. It is nurturing in caregiving; organising and modulating in structuring activities; and it is used to support or guide the child during more challenging tasks.
At all times, our goal is to maintain the child’s safety and support their developmental needs.
TCTSY is the first yoga-based, empirically validated clinical intervention for complex trauma or chronic, treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Developed originally at the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts by Dave Emerson and Jenn Turner, in collaboration with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Trauma Cen ter Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is now a program of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment, a non-profit organization dedicated to training and educating trauma-informed professionals around the world in innovative interventions for treating trauma.
TCTSY uses gentle, trauma-informed yoga practices to help participants reconnect with their body, regulate emotions, and build a sense of safety and resilience.
What it can help with:
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Complex trauma and chronic PTSD
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Emotional regulation and self-awareness
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Reconnecting safely with the body
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Reducing the physical and emotional impact of trauma
What to expect:
Sessions are safe, structured, and paced to each participant’s needs. Participants engage in gentle, guided yoga movements and breath work in a supportive environment. Over time, TCTSY can help individuals feel more grounded, emotionally regulated, and empowered in their recovery journey.
£85.00 per hour
What is Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy:
DDP is an attachment-based intervention to address complex developmental trauma and reactive attachment disorder. In particular, it is helpful for children and younger people who have experienced complex developmental trauma.
DDP explores the potential impact of current emotional and relationship functioning, which is naturally impacted and shaped by the complex developmental trauma. Through these therapeutic interactions the hope is that it enhances the parent: child relationship to one of acceptance and understanding. Allowing a parent to hold a space to accept the child, whilst also supporting and managing the child’s behaviour.
What DDP can help with:
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DDP focuses on building strong, safe connections between children and caregivers, encouraging emotional exploration and healing.
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Attachment difficulties relating to developmental trauma,
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Behavioural and emotional regulation
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Trauma recovery
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Enhancing family relationships
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with the support of a therapist to find strategies for emotional regulation, stress reduction and ways of coping that are more helpful.
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help the child to build on their tolerance in relation to environmental stimuli at home, school or other spaces in the community, including relationships.
What to expect:
DDP supports dyadic (two brain - two hearts) understanding between parent and child and supports parents with their own attachment needs and triggers surrounding their traumatised child.
DDP sessions commence with parent only sessions, to gain a therapeutic alliance with the DDP practitioner, exploring the parents own attachment history and how they learnt to relate to others, explore how they were parented, and how a parent functions in a relationship and any trauma history that a child may be triggering.
Walking the path a parent is experiencing with a child is important for the practitioner to learn first before a child enters the room. This way the practitioner can hold the parents voice in the room.
DDP helps children to understand their own inner world, children will start to gain interoception and learn to understand and interpret signals from their body and their perception of internal bodily sensations. The hope is that over time a child will move from shame to being able to hold a sense of others experience and the impact behaviour has on them.
CPD Standards
Wave Connections CIC is committed to delivering high-quality Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training that empowers educators, professionals, and caregivers to create trauma-aware, inclusive, and compassionate environments for children and families.
Our training meets recognised CPD standards by ensuring that all courses are:
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Evidence-based and experiential – rooted in current research on attachment, trauma, and neurodiversity.
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Outcome-focused – designed to enhance professional practice, emotional literacy, and inclusive approaches in education and care settings.
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Reflective and relational – encouraging participants to build insight, empathy, and resilience in their work with children and families.
Our CPD-accredited programmes include:
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PACE and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) Training
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Nurturing Attachment Therapeutic Parenting Program
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Just Right State Sensory Attachment Program
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Mindful Yoga for Young People’s Emotional Health
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Theraplay® and Attachment-Based Approaches
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Consultation and Guidance on behavioural and emotional health management
Wave Connections equips professionals with the skills and confidence to respond effectively to developmental trauma, attachment difficulties, and emotional health needs—promoting improved relationships, learning outcomes, and well-being for every child.
PACE Therapeutic Parenting Training
DDP PACE training provides you with a thorough understanding and experience of PACE embedded within the DDP framework.
It explores the PACE attitude, a way of thinking, feeling, communicating and behaving that aims to support the child to feel safe.
What is DDP PACE Training?
DDP PACE training will help you to understand the impact of developmental trauma and the challenges that children with this experience can struggle with.
It introduces how the experience of PACE within a DDP-informed approach can start to help these children to recover trust and safety.
It also explores PACE as a way of being with adults of all ages to provide a secure foundation for relationships to grow and thrive.
Drawing on their capacity for regulation and reflection, DDP PACE helps adults who support children to emotionally connect with them in ways which increase feelings of safety and trust.
What Is PACE
PACE stands for playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. It was created by Dr. Dan Hughes, the founder of DDPI and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), as a core aspect of DDP. PACE is central to DDP-informed parenting and teaching.
You can read a detailed explanation of PACE at:
What is meant by PACE? https://ddpnetwork.org/about-ddp/meant-pace/
Who is it for?
DDP PACE training is open to everyone. It is suitable for all adults caring for, or working with children who have experienced relational trauma. This can include adoptive parents, foster carers, kinship carers, residential workers, education practitioners, and support workers for example.
How is it taught?
This attitude of playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy is modelled on secure parent-infant interactions and guided by neuroscience and theories of attachment and intersubjectivity.
Core concepts include:
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Why children who have experienced developmental trauma, behave in the way they do
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What leads to children needing a different parenting approach involving PACE alongside behavioural support?
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How do we help/parent children that have experienced developmental trauma?
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What parenting capacities do parents need?
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Understanding what PACE is, and what it is not
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Using PACE alongside regulation and behavioural support
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The importance of self care, and blocked care
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Practical strategies for living and learning
On Completion
Once you have completed a Core DDP PACE training of 2 days or more you will receive your certificate and you can describe yourself as:
‘developing my use of DDP PACE within my practice’
Nurturing Attachment Therapeutic Parenting Program
Nurturing Attachment Program. 18 sessions. A structured therapeutic Parenting Program providing theory-based strategies for parenting.
Nurturing Attachment programme is based on a ‘House Model of Parenting’ (Kim Golding) that aims to help carers develop parenting skills that are matched to the emotional and behavioural needs of their children. Parents are encouraged to manage behaviour but within the much broader context of building trust and security with children who may mistrust adults and / or experienced trauma, loss and bereavement. The programme provides a coherent set of ideas and practical suggestions for therapeutically parenting
children in a way that nurtures security of attachment and therefore contributes to the building of resilience and emotional growth.
The Nurturing Attachment parenting groups is designed to provide guidance and support and aid reflective capacity to become ‘mind-minded’ within therapeutic parenting. Carers are encouraged to write reflective logs based on day to day experiences of parenting. Affective – reflective responses are collaboratively shared and expressed based on child’s behaviours and how this is internalized within a carer.
Nurturing Attachment group differs from traditional attachment training. Carers need to have completed foundations for attachment or conscious parenting program previously in order to access this experiential mode of learning and support. With the main aim of collaboratively learning from experience over the duration of the program. Day to day parenting experiences are utilised in understanding children’s functioning, adaptive behaviours and reflect on where parenting children with attachment difficulties may have had an impact on ones own emotional health.
The program builds on existing skills and facilitates ideas for therapeutically parenting children that build bridges for connection, nurtures security of attachment, builds resilience, emotional growth, trust and enhances the relationship dance within the home.
Kim Golding’s nurturing attachment program has been researched by Julie Selwyn of \Hedley research Centre for fostering and adoption. Smaller analysis of the program have also been undertaken and can be seen. The house model of therapeutic parenting is analysed as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of what is trying to be achieved in building foundations for therapeutic parenting. Grounded in attachment, developmental trauma and neuroscience theory.
The Neurobiology of attachment focused parenting is explored within the program. Parenting may at times lead to blocked care. Understanding this in context can facilitate greater attachment relationships:
‘When the failings that emerge while parenting a mistrustful child meet a parent’s sense of failing when they were children, in relationship with their own parents, there is a risk for a perfect storm of blocked trust and blocked care’ (p.205 Jonathan Baylin, Daniel Hughes, 2016).
The Nurturing Attachments program is based on Kim Goldings House Model of Parenting (please see attached diagrams). Three key models are covered with six sessions in each model.
Just Right State Sensory Attachment Integration Program
Sensory Attachment Integration Training Programme – £1,530 6 x sessions The
Just Right State Sensory Attachment Programme consists of 6 carer sessions and 6 young person sessions. The programme was devised by Eadaoin Bhreathnach, Specialist Trauma Occupational Therapist, following her work with children with learning needs and those with attachment needs. She observed fundamental needs, which led to the creation of this programme. For more information,
please see: https://www.sensoryattachmentintervention.com/jrs The training is most effective when a group of carers undertake the programme together.The ‘Just Right State Scared Gang’, help introduce survival strategies and emotional states: fight, flight, freeze, and shutdown. This helps us match the emotions and feelings behind children’s behaviours. We explore different activities and food properties that support emotional regulation. Children and carers explore what it means that all communication and experiences are sensory, and how this leads to emotional stimuli and behaviour. We learn how survival strategies used by children with complex trauma — experienced even in utero and early infancy — can wire the neuropathways of the nervous system.
The Four Levels of Processing: 1. Level 1: Autonomic Nervous System Activation / Regulation 2. Level 2: Modulation 3. Level 3: Interpretation 4. Level 4: Organisation Children and adults are supported to explore their ‘Just Right State’ sensations, to understand how these influence perceptions and thoughts. Using a combination of: Exercises (e.g. on a gym ball) Food exploration Games …children are supported in understanding and regulating their sensory and emotional world.
Mindful Yoga For Adult Emotional Health & Mindful Yoga For Young People's Emotional Health
These videos are interviews conducted with some of the people involved in our Mindful yoga program and feedback on their experience
Young Persons
Parent
Teacher
Mindful Yoga For Adults Emotional Health.
Since 2013 Carly has specialised in child trauma, adoption and Mindfulness. 2013 undertook Mindful Yoga Training for Young People’s emotional Health being taught to deliver the eight week Mindful Yoga Program.
Session Content:
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Session 1. What is Yoga & Mindfulness?: Auto Pilot. 3 minute breath. ‘Our sea within’ you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf’ Jon Kabat-Zinn’. PACE Outline. Playfulness. There is no ‘ACE’ without @P’
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Session 2. What is Stress? Good and bad stress: A language without words: How our bodies respond to stress, nervous system. Stress button in the brain. Salt timer for emotional regulation. Yoga sequence to manage stress.
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Session 3. Connect Body – Mind: Breathing Techniques. Boat origami. Pebble Meditation. Worksheets: define stress: emotional terms, physical terms and thoughts. Yoga sequence Curiosity part of PACE is explored in session 3 – Connect body – Mind’.
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Session 4. Awakening to the here and now: Self-knowledge. Strength cards, strategies for emotional regulation. Mindfulness and Yoga strategies.
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Session 5. Coming to our senses! Our Brilliant Brains: Use of senses to engage body, mind. Empathy part of PACE is explored in session 5 – ‘Coming to our senses’ our brilliant brains’.
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Session 6. Respond not React: Monkey, Meerkat and elephant brain. Planting seeds to grow, gain insight, emotional regulation
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Session 7. ‘What I be’ Acceptance & Non-judging: Understanding kindness to self and others by means of non-judging. Surfing the waves. Nurturing compassion. Acceptance part of PACE is explored in session 7 – What I be’,
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Session 8. Jumping Hurdles: how to do daily practice for Mindfulness for greater emotional well being.
3 weeks after course end date. Come together to Explore practice.
Consultations and Supervision
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