Transformance Journal: Last Name (For Display Order): Hughes

Dan Hughes, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and father of three who received his PhD from Ohio University. For most of his professional life, Dr. Hughes has been a clinician specializing in the treatment of children and youth with severe emotional and behavioral problems. Many of his clients had histories of abuse, neglect, and multiple losses and were extremely unwilling and unable to form a relationship with a therapist or with a caregiver. Working primarily with foster and adopted children, Dr. Hughes borrowed heavily from attachment theory and research to develop a model of treatment that he called Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. He gradually expanded the treatment model to all families, now called simply Attachment-focused family therapy. His treatment model, influenced by psychodynamic, gestalt, Rogerian, and Ericksonian traditions, is brought together within the intersubjective stance that is seen most powerfully in the relationship between a parent and child. Dr. Hughes is the author of a numerous articles as well as Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children, 2nd Edition, 2006, Attachment-Focused Family Therapy, published by WW Norton in 2007, and Principles of Attachment-Focused Parenting, published by WW Norton in 2009. His current passion is the training of therapists in the DDP model. He gives weekly training programs in Maine and Pennsylvania during the summer and in the US, UK, and Canada during the year. He is also a visiting tutor at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, which is a graduate program for psychotherapists. He has provided therapist training, conducted seminars and spoken at Conferences around the US, Canada, and the UK for the past ten years. He also routinely has presentations for foster and adoptive parents regarding ways of understanding and caring for their children with significant trauma and attachment problems. He also provides ongoing supervision and consultation to various clinicians and agencies, while speaking regularly to groups of parents. He has recently moved to Southeastern Pennsylvania where he maintains a small clinical practice for families and provides consultations and supervision to other professionals. This is what Dr. Hughes writes about his relationship with AEDP: “I have a special relationship with AEDP that is based on our shared therapeutic stance centered on attachment and emotion. My focus on the treatment of children and their parents is greatly aided by insights and interventions that have emerged within AEDP in the treatment of adults.”