Confessions Of A Trauma Therapist

To her surprise, dismay, and eventually relief, Mary Armstrong, a therapist with over thirty years of experience helping people heal from childhood trauma, uncovered her own history of child sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather and father. As she tells her harrowing but heroic tale, she casts light as never before on the issue of repressed memories and the invisible wounds left by childhood trauma.

Have you ever felt so afraid to open up about your emotions that you felt helpless? Speaking up about your deepest and most sacred thoughts can be very challenging. Due to a long existing stigma around speaking on mental health and its effect on society, it can become even more uncomfortable to consider sharing your story. It is easy to feel that we are alone at times, or that no one would understand our challenges. I want you to consider this. Imagine what your life would look like if you were able to release years of trauma from the depths of your soul. Picture the peace of mind you would have. I want you to actually envision a life free of the overwhelming burden of bottling up your emotions. Author Clara Porterfield has experienced her share of mixed emotions. Growing up in conditions that weren't the healthiest at times, Clara spent a lot of her childhood harboring her emotions. That led to her carrying those years of pain and hurt into her adult years. At that point Clara had felt like she lost herself. In Confessions to the Therapist, Clara shares her story of how therapy changed the direction of her life. She discusses why and how she was able to address her past trauma and start to live a life of fulfillment. Through therapy, journaling, and other forms of self-care, Clara was determined to regain control of her destiny. She did just that, and now she is sharing some of her story in hopes that you will be encouraged and inspired. Clara Porterfield is a self-published author and a true woman of hope and inspiration. Her passion is to help others grow and push through life's challenges just as she learned to do through therapy and other wellness practices.

This book is about people that are uniquely situated between the realms of activism, within the Psychiatric Survivor Movement, and their careers as mental health professionals. It focuses on the co-authors’ navigation and juxtaposition of the roles of psychiatric survivor, mental health professional, and activist. Psychiatric Survivors is an international movement advocating for human rights in mental health systems and supporting humane and effective alternative options to mainstream practice for help-seeking. Drawing on past research as well as the co-authors’ own experiences, the volume explores identities of people who identify as both psychiatric survivors and mental health professionals, discussing the potential for further dialogue between psychiatric survivors and mental health professionals to create humane and person-centred communities of healing. This book is specifically targeted for practising psychotherapists and graduate students, to gain new insight into the Psychiatric Survivor Movement and to appreciate the value of lived experience and of psychiatric survivors’ efforts shaping the future of mental health care.

Drawing on mindfulness, body psychotherapy and positive psychology, focusing teaches clients how to identify their inner awareness to spur change and therapeutic progress. This guide explains how to use focusing to treat a range of issues.

Emerging Practice in Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy brings together some of the world's most influential contemporary psychotherapists in the field to look at the future of Focusing-oriented approaches. Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy - a form of therapy that involves listening to the innate wisdom of the body - is a dynamic and growing field that has evolved greatly since Eugene Gendlin first published the text Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy in 1996. This book explores recent innovations such as Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy as a response to trauma, Wholebody Focusing, and how Focusing has been adapted in Japan and South Korea. One section looks at specific contemporary issues and emerging practical applications of Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy, such as how Focusing can be used in wellbeing counselling and to help decision making processes in counselling and therapy. By offering new alternatives to working effectively with difficult issues and specific client groups, this volume will appeal to a broad range of therapists, coaches, and other practitioners. Jessica Kingsley Publishers also publishes a companion volume, Theory and Practice of Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: Beyond the Talking Cure, edited by Greg Madison [9781849053242].

Compelling Confessions is a collection of essays whose shared purpose is to offer an accessible interdisciplinary exploration of the social dynamics behind confessional discourse. As the contributors to this volume demonstrate, confession is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, not only within psychological or therapeutic frameworks or literary analysis, but also in internet discussion groups, in the criminal justice system, in political rhetoric, in so-called 'reality' and interview-style television programming, in writing pedagogy and, increasingly, in the testimonial strain observable in contemporary scholarship.

Wisdom, Attachment, and Love in Trauma Therapy focuses on the creation of the therapist as healing presence rather than technique administrator—in other words, how to be rather than what to do. Trauma survivors need wise therapists who practice with the union of intellect, knowledge, and intuition. Through self-work, therapists can learn to embody healing qualities that foster an appropriate, corrective, and loving experience in treatment that transcends any technique. This book shows how Eastern wisdom teachings and Western psychotherapeutic modalities combine with modern theory to support a knowledgeable, compassionate, and wise therapist who is equipped to help even the most traumatized person heal.

Paul, our psychotherapist, encounters a variety of troubled and sometimes manic clients. A slur on his professional status, resulting in a disciplinary hearing threatens his career. When Paul falls in love with Jean, he later suspects she is involved in the plot. Before all is revealed, our hero knows the kind of trauma he is in the business of curing.