Working with Trauma

Awareness of the psychological effects of traumatic experience is on the increase. The issue of trauma is now something that almost all therapeutic practitioners will encounter in the course of their work. Working with people with histories of past trauma, however, frequently poses a number of difficulties for the therapist, including the frustration and uncertainty of working with clients who, through fear or extreme anxiety, are reluctant to address their traumatic memories. Furthermore, with the emergence of the false memory debate, therapists may have to deal with their own and their clients' ambivalence regarding the veracity of accounts of childhood sexual abuse. Working with traumatic material, therefore, places a huge burden on the therapist, who must learn to cope with his or her own feelings about the emotional material and the intense feelings of helplessness, rage, rescue or sadness which may be evoked in therapists by traumatised clients. This collection of work usescase examples and empirical research to illuminate these process issues.