Families and Individuals Living with Trauma: A Guide for Therapists, Relatives, and Friends

Description

This book is an accessible guide for understanding and treating psychological trauma. Drawing on Dr. Woodcock’s extensive experience and the latest research, it offers an approach that integrates systemic therapy and psychoanalytic perspectives through the lens of attachment theory. The book’s chapters cover topics such as trauma and pain; traumatic death; how to respond when disaster strikes; social systems that promote attachment versus systems that create trauma; and how to look after ourselves as therapists, family, and friends of trauma survivors. Because no single therapeutic paradigm is sufficient to capture the complexity of trauma, the book brings together a wide set of therapeutic traditions and shows in detail how to apply a variety of treatment approaches, gathered from psychoanalytic, cognitive behavioral, intersubjective, mindfulness, and body psychotherapy traditions, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The book’s vignettes and case studies provide clear illustrations of the theory outlined and demonstrate the use of interventions in a range of settings. It will appeal to qualified and training practitioners in the clinical and care professions and researchers from across the psychological sciences with an interest in trauma, as well as to a more general readership affected by issues relating to trauma. Acknowledgments About This Book Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction References 2 Beginnings Bodily Signs and Symptoms Mental Signs and Symptoms Environment Signs and Symptoms Making a Story of Trauma The Four Dimensions of the Trauma Story Trust Making Sense of Signs and Symptoms Signs of Being More Easily Aroused Avoiding Things to Do with the Trauma and Being Less Involved in Life Having a Sense That the Extreme Event Is Ever Present Often Trauma Comes Out Sideways The Wish to Remember and the Need to Forget A Systemic Scaffolding Beginning at the Beginning Capacity for Reflection Supporting Someone Who Doesn’t Want Therapeutic Help Felt Experience Felt Shift Finding the Middle Ground What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 3 Body, Brain and Trauma Basic Trust The Limbic System: Our Fight and Flight and Freeze Protector The Biology of the Limbic System What Our Body Can Teach Us Amygdala Hypothalamus Hippocampus Cingulate Gyrus The Low Road and the High Road Mirror Neurones How Trauma Narrows Attention and Breathing Opens It Up The Vagus Nerve Body Work What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 4 Creating a Welcome Containment and Validation Bordered Experience and the Exiled Self Gaze Aversion What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 5 Trauma, Attachment and Resilience Attachment Avoidant Attachment Ambivalent Attachment Attachment and Trauma Developmental Trauma and Event-Driven Trauma Resilience to Trauma The Circle of Security Resolving Childhood Abuse in Adulthood What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 6 When Secure Attachments Are Blown Apart Coherence Metacognition Dual Coding Developmental Trauma and Forgetting What Happens in Trauma When Trauma Detaches Us Learning Point What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 7 Trauma, Pain, and Transformation Pain Is Not Pathology Being Safe The Need for a Secure Base to Work Through Trauma Meeting Physiological Needs Panic Attacks Meeting Safety and Security Needs Visualization, Breath-work and Relaxation Flashbacks Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming (EMDR) Meeting the Need to Belong: Unravelling Inner and Outer Experience Needs for Esteem, and Self-Actualization Transformation Groupwork and Transformation Learning to Sit with Trauma and When to Respond Mindfulness Summary What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 8 Trauma and Death The Singularity of Death The Web of Life and Death The Need to Remember and the Wish to Forget How to Help with Deeply Traumatic Grief Whether to Seal off Memories or Work with Them Sleep Alienation The Pathway Toward Recovery What We Can Do as Family and Friends 9 Social Systems That Promote Attachment Versus Systems That Create Trauma Poverty and Trauma What Could Be More Natural Than a Natural Disaster Gender and Trauma Social Systems That Promote Attachment vs. Systems That Create Trauma Relational Learning Social systems That Work Against Attachment Cause Trauma Family Violence and Trauma Attachment as Tenderness Social Systems Geared Toward Attachment Attachment, Violence, and Trauma Resilience to Trauma Frameworks for Social Protection Are Frameworks for Self Protection What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 10 When Disaster Strikes Psychological First Aid More Targeted Psychological Help Visualization Self-Help Moving Beyond First Aid What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 11 Learning to Look After Ourselves Secondary Traumatic Distress What to Do? Remedial Measures Daily and Weekly Self-Care Guidance The Hidden Effects of Stress Pain and Memory How We Are Affected Forms of Self-Protection Compartmentalization Questions to Subjectively Determine if Stress Is at Breaking Point Compassion Fatigue and Secondary Traumatic Stress Looking After Ourselves When It’s a Family Who Is Traumatized What We Can Do as Family and Friends References 12 Mainly Theory The Presence and Absence of the Body in Psychotherapy Shell Shock and Work in Groups Fear of Intimacy and Projective Identification The Body as Container Containment and Validation Shame Attachment Theory Vietnam War Veterans Unclaimed Experience EMDR Body Psychotherapies Mindfulness Family Therapy Integration in Theory and Practice Finale References Index