Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) - Boon, Suzette; Steele, Kathy; Hart Ph.D., Onno Van Der Review & Synopsis

 Synopsis

 Winner of the 2011 International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) Pierre Janet Writing Award. 

 A patient-oriented manual for complex trauma survivors. 

 This training manual for patients who have a trauma-related dissociative disorder includes short educational pieces, homework sheets, and exercises that address ways in which dissociation interferes with essential emotional and life skills, and support inner communication and collaboration with dissociative parts of the personality. Topics include understanding dissociation and PTSD, using inner reflection, emotion regulation, coping with dissociative problems related to triggers and traumatic memories, resolving sleep problems related to dissociation, coping with relational difficulties, and help with many other difficulties with daily life. The manual can be used in individual therapy or structured groups.

Review

 Suzette Boon, PhD , is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist working in private practice in Maarssen, the Netherlands. She was the co-founder and first President of the European Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.

 Kathy Steele, MN, CS , is in private practice with Metropolitan Psychotherapy Associates in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a former President of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation.

 Onno van der Hart, Ph.D. , is Professor Emeritus of Psychopathology of Chronic Traumatization, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, and a psychologist / psychotherapist in private practice in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is a Past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).

"[A] book worthy of [therapists'] time."

 - PsychCentral 

"This book is a much-welcomed tool for working with individuals with complex trauma. Although there are other training manuals that address the treatment of trauma, there is none that deal specifically with the subset of dissociative pathology. This manual is the first of its kind, a hands-on and practical training and skill-building tool for individuals and therapists. . . . The book has a user-friendly approach that is integrative and eclectic and can easily be introduced and incorporated in ongoing treatment. . . . For therapist and clients, navigating complex trauma can feel daunting and confusing with many stops and falls that may leave both feeling discouraged. This book is an anchor for the work, a place to return when uncertainty invades treatment."

 - Social Work with Groups 

"Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation contains the lucid explanations, practical skills, and collective wisdom of three therapists with decades of experience treating dissociative patients. This book serves as a manual for therapists, a guide for trainers, and a workbook for dissociative disorder patients, delivering an up-to-date blend of the best clinical practices with recent advances in mindfulness therapy and cognitive behavioral approaches to pathological dissociation."

 - Frank W. Putnam, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 

"This book is a welcome and much-needed resource for complex dissociative clients and their therapists. It offers a myriad of exercises and strategies to help clients challenge dissociative adaptations and replace them with other means of coping, so that they can develop a more integrated self and life, and ultimately regain control of their bodies and minds."

 - Christine A. Courtois, PhD, ABPP, author of Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy and Recollections of Sexual Abuse 

Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation

This training manual for pateints who have suffered severe trauma includes a short educational piece, homework sheets, and exercises that promote essential emotional and life skills.

This training manual for pateints who have suffered severe trauma includes a short educational piece, homework sheets, and exercises that promote essential emotional and life skills."

Haunted Self

Life is an ongoing struggle for patients who have been chronically traumatized. They typically have a wide array of symptoms, often classified under different combinations of comorbidity, which can make assessment and treatment complicated and confusing for the therapist. Many patients have substantial problems with daily living and relationships, including serious intrapsychic conflicts and maladaptive coping strategies. Their suffering essentially relates to a terrifying and painful past that haunts them. Even when survivors attempt to hide their distress beneath a facade of normality—a common strategy—therapists often feel besieged by their many symptoms and serious pain. Small wonder that many survivors of chronic traumatization have seen several therapists with little if any gains, and that quite a few have been labeled as untreatable or resistant. In this book, three leading researchers and clinicians share what they have learned from treating and studying chronically traumatized individuals across more than 65 years of collective experience. Based on the theory of structural dissociation of the personality in combination with a Janetian psychology of action, the authors have developed a model of phase-oriented treatment that focuses on the identification and treatment of structural dissociation and related maladaptive mental and behavioral actions. The foundation of this approach is to support patients in learning more effective mental and behavioral actions that will enable them to become more adaptive in life and to resolve their structural dissociation. This principle implies an overall therapeutic goal of raising the integrative capacity, in order to cope with the demands of daily life and deal with the haunting remnants of the past, with the “unfinished business” of traumatic memories. Of interest to clinicians, students of clinical psychology and psychiatry, as well as to researchers, all those interested in adult survivors of chronic child abuse and neglect will find helpful insights and tools that may make the treatment more effective and efficient, and more tolerable for the suffering patient.

In this book, three leading researchers and clinicians share what they have learned from treating and studying chronically traumatized individuals across more than 65 years of collective experience."