Creativity And The Dissociative Patient

Lani Gerity shows in this book that puppet-making, incorporating both art and narrative, provides an ideal vehicle for therapeutic work. It is particularly valuable in the treatment of dissociative patients, whose symptoms may include disturbances in body image, a dissociated sense of self, a disrupted sense of history and causality, and a feeling of alienation from the self. Lani Gerity explores the application of this in the context of object relations theory. She shows the creative process working on many levels for dissociative individuals and groups. Making puppets, three-dimensional representations of the human body, helped one patient to integrate her sense of her body image and herself. Using puppets and creating narratives about them encourages patients to build communities and to release themselves from the hold of the trauma of their pasts. Descriptions and analyses of Gerity's work with dissociative patients in the US and Canada is underpinned by a theoretical framework which encompasses theories from the arts therapies and from psychiatry.

Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations explores the potential of mindfulness and explains why this level of developmental human achievement is so precarious within traumatic stress, especially traumatic dissociation. Chapters discuss the connection and disconnection between mindfulness and dissociative disorders and highlight the importance of gently creating a mindfulness practice for traumatized individuals. Readers will learn how to exercise the part of the brain that is responsible for mindfulness and how to regulate the part that is responsible for dissociation, and they’ll come away from the book with tips that will help even the most dissociative client to reap the benefits of mindfulness practices.

Creativity, Trauma, and Resilience is an examination of creativity and its ability to foster meaning, purpose, and a deeper sense of connection. This is particularly important for individuals who experience higher doses of childhood and adult trauma and who may be contending with the residual effects of terror and uncertainty. Paula Thomson and S. Victoria Jaque outline psychological, physiologic, and neurobiological effects of early attachment ruptures, childhood adversity, adult trauma, and trauma-related factors, and explore how the potential negative trajectory of adversity can be countered by resilience, self-regulation, posttraumatic growth, and factors that promote creativity.

Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations explores the potential of mindfulness and explains why this level of developmental human achievement is so precarious within traumatic stress, especially traumatic dissociation. Chapters discuss the connection and disconnection between mindfulness and dissociative disorders and highlight the importance of gently creating a mindfulness practice for traumatized individuals. Readers will learn how to exercise the part of the brain that is responsible for mindfulness and how to regulate the part that is responsible for dissociation, and they’ll come away from the book with tips that will help even the most dissociative client to reap the benefits of mindfulness practices.

Arts - Therapies - Communication is designed as two volumes, with this being the first volume. The book deals with art therapy studies from Great Britain and the non-European countries. The second volume offers topic-related contributions from other European regions and countries. Under the auspices of the European Consortium for Art Therapies Education (ECArTE) a European art therapy, which is concerned with the development of a European-oriented discipline with training and fostering of successors at universities, is articulating itself. The book is aimed at art therapists, music therapists, drama and dance therapists but also at psychotherapists and clinical psychologists, teachers, sociologists and doctors. With regard to method and theory different directions and psychoanalytical approaches are represented and it also addresses a wide spectrum of clinical and non-clinical contexts and illnesses. In this way diverse interests in art therapy can be satisfied.

The Therapist's Notebook, Volume 2: More Homework, Handouts, and Activities for Use in Psychotherapy, is the updated classic that provides mental health clinicians with hands-on tools to use in daily practice. This essential resource includes helpful homework assignments, reproducible handouts, and activities and interventions that can be applied to a wide variety of client and client problems. Useful case studies illustrate how the activities can be effectively applied. The book employs a consistent chapter format, making finding the 'right' activity easy.

The scope of Erika Fromm's profound contributions to the clinical and research literature in hypnosis and related areas is reflected in this volume, which consists of chapters written by those who have worked closely with the noted psychologist and/or have been significantly influenced by her. The subject matter presented here ranges from detailed accounts and personal observations relating to Fromm's distinguished career, to some very new and valuable data on the psychophysiological correlates of hypnosis, the phenomenology of self-hypnosis, and an integrative model for short-term therapy. Several extensions of clinical technique for the treatment of trauma and severe psychopathology are also discussed. Professional therapists with an interest in personal growth, self-awareness, and creative mastery, whether or not they already have an interest in hypnosis, will derive significant benefits from this book. Readers who have previously eschewed hypnosis may find that this volume stimulates an interest that enriches their clinical practice and/or research.

Laypeople think of wake, sleep and dreaming as distinct states of the mind/brain but “in-between”, hybrid states are recognized. For example, day-dreaming or, more scientifically, the default network occurs during wake. Equally, during sleep, lucid dreaming in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep presents as another hybrid state. But hybrid states are usually temporary. This book explores the possibility of an enduring hybrid wake-sleep-dream state, proposing that such a state may engender both creativity and psychopathologies. REM sleep is hyper-associative. Creativity depends on making remote associations. If REM sleep and dreaming begin to suffuse the wake state, enhanced creativity may result. But moderate to severe interpenetration of wake, sleep and dreaming may engender psychopathologies – as the functions of wake, sleep and dreaming are partially eroded.