Main description:

Personalising Trauma Treatment is about helping trauma victims back to their old selves and focuses on altering the perception of the centrality of the trauma.

In this book, clients are taught to rediscover their sense of self by reframing the trauma. Within this new framework the focus is on the client's mental time travel from the trauma to today and reimagining their future. The therapeutic targets are the thoughts and images (cognitions) that interfere with day-to-day functioning. It does not assume that arrested information processing lies at the heart of the development of PTSD, with a consequent need for the client to re-live the trauma. For those clients who were abused in childhood, their experiences are viewed through a particular central window, but other 'windows' may make for more appropriate engagement with their personal world and a reimagining of their view of themselves. Treatment delivery options from telephone consultation, group work and videoconferencing are discussed. With illustrative examples, the author highlights the pathway to recovery for a wide range of clients with the comorbidity often found in real-world settings.

The book will be essential reading for therapists and other mental health professionals working with trauma survivors.

Contents:

PART ONE Distilling A New Direction; 1. Client's Complaints Post-trauma; 2. Making Sense of The Client's Response; 3. What Works for Whom In Routine Practice?; 4. Do Treatments Work for the Supposed Reason?; 5. A New Paradigm; PART TWO Applying The Centrality Framework; 6. Re-visiting The Implications of The Trauma; 8. When The Trauma Highlights A Pre-existing More Pernicious Problem; 8. The Client's Account Is Not Necessarily Veridicial; 9. Capitalising On The Client's Credible Model of Persuasion; 10. Forsaking The 'Warzone Glasses' For Pre-Trauma Specs; 11. A Marked Target?; 12. The Amplification of Vulnerability; PART THREE Managing the Crises That Can Derail Trauma Treatment; 13. Prolonged Duress Stress Disorder; 14. Weathering The Pandemic; 15. From One War Zone to Another?; PART FOUR Disseminating Trauma Treatment; 16. Groups Post Trauma; 17. Therapeutic Competence