Families and Individuals Living with Trauma

Book excerpt: 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.