Clinical Psychologist in Warminster
Trusted expertise in working with children who have experienced early relational trauma - working with organisations across the UK
Hi, I’m Vicky.
When Trauma Is Deep, Support Must Be Deeper - and that is why Secure Connection is at the core of everything I do!
Because when adults feel supported and regulated,children feel safer. When children feel safe, healing becomes possible. When healing happens, stability follows.
About Dr Vicky Sutton
Attachment at the Heart of Practice
I am a Clinical Psychologist who is also registered with the Health Professionals Council (HPC). Since qualifying in 2005, I have specialised in working with traumatised children, their families, and professional networks. I have held specialist ‘looked after children’ posts in both Social Services and the NHS. Since April 2012, I have worked independently providing psychological assessments of children’s needs (including attachment / impact of trauma); expert witness assessments and reports for Court. I also provide therapeutic interventions with children and families, alongside consultation, training and supervision for professionals working with children who have experienced relational trauma.
I believe children who have experienced abuse or neglect don’t need behaviour management - they need felt safety.
Everything I do is grounded in the understanding that healing happens in relationship. When a child feels truly safe with the adults caring for them, something shifts. Trust becomes possible. Regulation becomes possible. Growth becomes possible.
My work isn’t surface-level. It’s not about quick fixes or tick-box training. It’s deep, relational, evidence-based practice designed to create lasting change for children and the systems around them.
DDP Training & Workshops
Supporting the People Who Carry So Much
When Relationships Feel Safe, Change Happens
Therapeutic Interventions
Core Approaches – Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and Trauma Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST)
What is Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)?
DDP was developed by Dr. Daniel Hughes, a Clinical Psychologist, based in America. It has a growing evidence base as an effective treatment for children who present with attachment difficulties / developmental trauma secondary to their experiences of abuse, neglect and multiple placements.
Therapy focuses on the relationship between carer and child. The DDP Practitioner provides therapeutic support to carers, helping them to make sense of their child’s behaviours in the context of past trauma. The parents and carers share this understanding with the child in a way which helps to give new meaning to the child’s feelings and behaviour. These ongoing reciprocal, intersubjective interactions are the building blocks of attachment security.
Parents and carers develop therapeutic parenting skills and adopt an attitude of PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy), helping their child to feel safe when sharing (verbally and nonverbally) often very painful somatic (feeling and body) memories from their traumatic past. The child is helped to develop a coherent narrative around these experiences which challenges commonly held negative beliefs around self blame and feelings of worthlessness. Through this process, children learn to trust, feel safer in relationships, and reframe their past in a way that highlights strengths and adaptive survival responses.
For more detailed information visit https://ddpnetwork.org/about-ddp/dyadic-developmental-psychotherapy/.
What is Trauma Informed Stabilisation Therapy (TIST)?
TIST is a trauma informed therapeutic approach developed by Dr Janina Fisher, a Clinical Psychologist, also in the USA, and is designed to address the more severe trauma related symptoms such as self-harm, suicidality and addictive behaviours presenting in adults. The TIST model recognises that unsafe behaviours often have roots in instinctive survival responses activated in life-threatening situations.
For infants, survival is entirely dependent on the quality of the relationship with the primary care giver. Therefore, attaching to the care giver is a biological imperative. However, a biological paradox arises when the very person the infant seeks an attachment with (for survival) is the very same person who threatens the infant’s survival (frightened / frightening behaviour).
Opposing survival responses are activated simultaneously – the need to attach and the need to avoid the life threat. In infancy, the ability to fight or flee is unavailable, therefore dissociation becomes the primary response for survival. As the child grows, repeated traumatic experiences necessitate greater fragmentation and separation. Dr. Fisher (2017) explains that to enable ongoing functioning, there must be a strict separation between the different innate survival responses (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Submit, and Attach) and the "going on with normal life" part of the personality. Dissociation allows a resolution to the conflict of both needing the attachment figure and the instinctive drive to avoid the threat (fight/flight).
TIST therefore integrates theories from the structural dissociation model (Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis and Kathy Steele) and sensorimotor psychotherapy (Pat Ogden) as well as theories from the neurosciences (Bessel van de Kolk, Stephen Porges), Attachment Theory and Intersubjectivity (the same theories that underpin the DDP model).
As the core theoretical models for each therapeutic approach are the same, it is possible to integrate TIST with the DDP. By integrating the two, it is possible to remain a therapist to the relationship between the parent and child, whilst holding in mind that it is this very relationship which will likely trigger the fragmented parts of the child’s self, organised around the different survival states (Attach, Fight, Flight, Freeze and Submit).
“Trauma-informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) is a trauma-informed parts approach to therapy. In TIST, we work with the ‘living legacy of trauma:’ the emotional and somatic memories held by young parts of the self and experienced as here-and-now reality by our clients” (Fisher, 2017).
For more information, see (https://janinafisher.com/tist/).
My Experience
Core Approaches – Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and Trauma Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST)
What is Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)?
DDP was developed by Dr. Daniel Hughes, a Clinical Psychologist, based in America. It has a growing evidence base as an effective treatment for children who present with attachment difficulties / developmental trauma secondary to their experiences of abuse, neglect and multiple placements.
Therapy focuses on the relationship between carer and child. The DDP Practitioner provides therapeutic support to carers, helping them to make sense of their child’s behaviours in the context of past trauma. The parents and carers share this understanding with the child in a way which helps to give new meaning to the child’s feelings and behaviour. These ongoing reciprocal, intersubjective interactions are the building blocks of attachment security.
Parents and carers develop therapeutic parenting skills and adopt an attitude of PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy), helping their child to feel safe when sharing (verbally and nonverbally) often very painful somatic (feeling and body) memories from their traumatic past. The child is helped to develop a coherent narrative around these experiences which challenges commonly held negative beliefs around self blame and feelings of worthlessness. Through this process, children learn to trust, feel safer in relationships, and reframe their past in a way that highlights strengths and adaptive survival responses.
For more detailed information visit https://ddpnetwork.org/about-ddp/dyadic-developmental-psychotherapy/.
Reflective Practice Consultation & Supervision
Core Approaches to Supervision and Consultation – Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP).
Dr Vicky Sutton became a certified as a Consultant in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) in 2016. Since this time, she has offered supervision and consultation to a wide range of professionals engaged in supporting developmentally traumatised children in a range of different settings. Vicky has supported many professionals through the certification process to become DDP Practitioners, Consultants and Trainers themselves.
Vicky also offers group supervision, please see the consultation sessions below to book your place.
In addition, Vicky offers regular support and consultation to organisations, both large and small. Vicky is currently working with Wiltshire Local Authority who have an ambitious plan to embed DDP as their practice model of choice within their Fostering and Kinship Teams. Wiltshire are committed to delivering DDP Level One and Two trainings to all their social care professionals and PACE training to all their foster and kinship carers, as well as ongoing DDP consultation and supervision to both professionals and carers in developing their skills and understanding. In addition, Wiltshire also offer a broad programme of trauma and attachment-informed training delivered by skilled professionals who regularly access DDP consultation.
This ambitious work has paid off with Wiltshire achieving an “Outstanding” OFSTED inspection, with special recognition of the quality of training and consultation they provide to foster and kinship carers as well as to the professionals who support them. I’m proud to be supporting Wiltshire LA on their journey towards DDP Partnership status.
My Experience
“Supporting others in adopting DDP as their practice model, both individually and within organizations, has become increasingly important to me. At the heart of DDP is the experience is safety. This begins with creating a sense of safety for parents and carers, who can then extend this experience to their child. However, parents and carers can only provide this experience of safety to their children if they themselves feel held and safe in the networks which support them.
The DDP Consultant can play a key role in bringing the network together (Social Workers, Teachers, Mental Health Workers). By beginning with curiosity, the DDP Consultant can facilitate greater acceptance and empathy for the different perspectives held by the different members of the network (professional and family members). This attitude of PACE helps to build the safety needed to find a path forward in often very complex circumstances. For the wider network to create safety for parents and carers, they too must experience safety from their service leads, managers, and supervisors.
Providing DDP consultation to professionals in leadership roles is crucial for creating a safe environment. DDP offers a practice model where this sense of safety can permeate the entire organization, from those at the top down to the child who remains at the centre. This represents DDP practice at its best.
In today’s world, resources to support our most vulnerable children are stretched thin. My colleagues in Social Care, Education, and Mental Health face extraordinary challenges as they work to provide high-quality therapeutic support for children who have experienced relational trauma.
In my consultation sessions, I am continually inspired by the compassion, skill, and dedication that professionals bring to their role when managing extremely complex cases. If I can play even a small part in supporting this vital work, I feel deeply grateful”.
Vicky
DR VICKY SUTTON
© 2025 by Dr Vicky Sutton. Privacy Policy