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DDP is a attachment focused family therapy approach which incorporates well-researched principles such as a focus on relationships, attunement, intersubjectivity, and sensitive responsiveness. The primary goal of DDP is to support children in developing the ability to maintain attachment-based relationships with parents and caregivers. 

The DDP connects website provides the following information;

"The therapist helps the child’s relationship with their parents by talking with the child using an affective-reflective dialogue. This is a conversation that involves feeling as well as thinking. The therapist explores all aspects of the child’s life; safe and traumatic; present and past.

The therapist and parents’ intersubjective experience of the child helps the child get a different understanding. This becomes integrated into their autobiographical narrative. This in turn becomes more coherent.

In this way the child experiences healing of past trauma and achieves safety within current relationships. The conversations and interactions (verbal and non-verbal) within the therapy room are all based upon PACE. This means that the therapist will be playful, accepting, curious and empathic. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy involves the child and parents working together with the therapist. The child gains relationship experience which helps them to grow and heal emotionally. Family members develop healthy patterns of relating and communicating.

What can be expected following DDP? 

• The child will feel safer and more secure with their parents. 
• Controlling behaviours will reduce
• When stressed the child might return to old ways of relating and behaving. For example they might become more controlling again. However it will be easier to help the child feel less stressed. The child will then feel secure again
• The child will find relationships easier
• The child will regulate emotions more easily
• The child will manage stress better
• The child will understand their emotional experience better
• As the child is helped to heal from the past trauma they will become more emotionally healthy"

The following information is taken from the Theraplay® website. 

The MIM is a structured technique for observing and assessing the overall quality and nature of relationships between caregivers and child. It consists of a series of simple tasks designed to elicit behaviors in four primary dimensions in order to evaluate the caregivers’ capacity to:

• Set limits and provide an appropriately ordered environment (Structure)
• Engage the child in interaction while being attuned to the child’s state (Engagement)
• Meet the child’s needs for attention, soothing and care (Nurture)
• Support and encourage the child’s efforts to achieve at a developmentally appropriate level (Challenge)
• And the child’s ability to respond to the caregivers’ efforts

The MIM takes from 30 to 60 minutes and is usually videotaped. There are sets of tasks designed to be used in each of four age groups: infant, toddler, pre-school/school age, and adolescent. Materials needed to perform the tasks are simple and readily available.

In addition to allowing a close look at problem areas in the relationship, the MIM provides a unique opportunity for observing the strengths of both adult and child and of their relationship. It is, therefore, a valuable tool in planning for treatment and in determining how to help families strengthen their relationships. The description of the relationship that results from this observation is a valuable aid in determining the appropriateness of custody arrangements, reunification, foster placement and/or adoption.