I have just recently finished reading the book The Trauma Treatment Handbook: Protocols Across the Spectrum by Robin Shapiro, and it is great!! I learned so much from it as both a survivor and budding therapist that I highly recommend it to both trauma survivors and therapists.
The book starts out with a very good explanation of trauma and dissociation. She describes dissociation so well and eloquently that I have never read a better description (and I have read a lot!). After that she writes about different treatment options which I found very interesting. As a social worker to be, I was struck by the sheer number of options that you could use depending on your particular client's strengths, interests, issues, etc. It blew my mind! As a survivor myself, it opened my eyes to various options and which ones I find have been most helpful for me, least helpful, and ones which I might want to try. The other thing that struck me, as an MSW student is that I had done a paper on EMDR, and many of the other therapies that were described had aspects in common with EMDR such as bilateral stimulation, titrated exposure, CBT elements similar to those used in EMDR, etc. Each mode of therapy is also followed up with a list of resources, so if you have interest in a particular one, you can find more to read on it through her resources. Excellent, excellent, excellent!!!
She has a section on therapies for complex trauma where she writes about attachment in a way I never looked at attachment before. My sister and I both have HUGE issues from attachment, and both of us believe that the neglect we received from our mother was more traumatic than any other abuse we received. As an educator, I know that children can be very resilient and can handle a lot given a truly supportive family with good attachment. The fact that I did not have that "soft place to fall" has impacted my life more than anything!!! Never underestimate the trauma of emotional neglect.
At the end of the book she addresses therapy with special populations, such as Veterans. This was helpful to me from a professional standpoint. there was so much in those chapters that I didn't know, especially with concern for the military. As a future therapist I know how important it is to really understand what your client's experience is and to look at each client in a person-in-environment context. That section was really helpful.
If you would like to read the book yourself, click on the reference at the bottom to be taken to the book's page on Amazon.com. It is available as a regular book and an ebook for Kindle. Following the resource, you will find a link to the author's blog. She writes some interesting things on there as well.
References
Trauma and Attachment Therapy (Blog)
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