Psychotraumatology

The nosological roots of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be traced back to th~American Psychiatric Association's DSM-I entry of gross stress reaction, as published in 1952. Yet the origins of the current enthusi asm with regard to post-traumatic stress can be traced back to 1980, which marked the emergence of the term post-traumatic stress disorder in the DSM III. This reflected the American Psychiatric Association's acknowledgment of post-traumatic stress as a discrete, phenomenologically unique, and reli able psychopathological entity at a time in American history when such recognition had important social, political, and psychiatric implications. Clearly, prior to DSM-I the lack of a generally accepted terminology did little to augment the disabling effects that psychological traumatization could engender. Nor did the subsequent provision of an official diagnostic label alone render substantial ameliorative qualities. Nevertheless, the post Vietnam DSM-III recognition of PTSD did herald a dramatic increase in research and clinical discovery. The American Red Cross acknowledged the need to establish disaster mental health services, the American Psychological Association urged its members to form disaster mental health networks, and the Veterans Administration established a national study center for PTSD.

Since the late 1970s, there has been an increase in the study of diversity, inclusion, race, and ethnicity within the field of counseling. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Multicultural Counseling, Social Justice, and Advocacy will comprehensively synthesize a wide range of terms, concepts, ideologies, groups, and organizations through a diverse lens. This encyclopedia will include entries on a wide range of topics relative to multicultural counseling, social justice and advocacy, and the experiences of diverse groups. The encyclopedia will consist of approximately 600 signed entries, arranged alphabetically within four volumes.

An Existential Approach to Interpersonal Trauma provides a new existential framework for understanding the experiences of interpersonal trauma building on reflections from Marc Boaz’s own personal history, clinical insight and research. The book suggests that psychology, psychotherapy and existentialism do not recognise the significance of the existential movements that occur in traumatic confrontations with reality. By considering what people find at the limits and boundaries of human experiencing, Boaz describes the ways in which they can disillusion and re-illusion themselves, and how this becomes incorporated into their modes of existing in the world and in relation to others. In incorporating the experience of trauma into the way people live – all the existential horror, terror and liberation contained within it – Boaz invites them to embrace an expansive ethic of (re)(dis)covery. This ethic recognises the ambiguity and spectrality of interpersonal trauma, and expands the horizons of our human relationships. The book provides an important basis for professionals wanting to work existentially with interpersonal trauma and for people wanting to deepen their understanding of the trauma they have experienced.

Traumatizing events can break a person. However, a series of small but inevitable pinpricks, lovelessness and ambivalent relationships can also ruin a person. A traumatic event touches and invades a person unspeakably deeply. This book attempts to put into words the psychic abyss of trauma, which the victim experiences, and helps to detect and understand possible traumatization. It wants to encourage traumatized people and their counsellors to choose the path of small steps out of the trauma. In this way, previously traumatized people can rediscover their dignity. The path leads from an existence dictated by the outside world to a self-determined life.

Trauma presents as a negative experience or situation of an individual in which coping mechanisms do not always work perfectly. This leads to the appearance of disturbing behavior, thinking, or developing disorders in the area of mental illnesses. Psychological trauma is related to chronic and repetitive experiences and the term and situation that refer to it must be consider objectively because it is up to each survivor to determine if it is traumatic. Future studies in the area of psychological trauma need to be conducted with the aim of defining anatomical correlates of stress and its underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.

Attachment-Informed Grief Therapy bridges the fields of attachment studies, thanatology, and interpersonal neuroscience, uniting theory, research, and practice to enrich our understanding of how we can help the bereaved. The new edition includes updated research and discussion of emotion regulation, relational trauma, epistemic trust, and much more. In these pages, clinicians and students will gain a new understanding of the etiology of problematic grief and its treatment, and will become better equipped to formulate accurate and specific case conceptualization and treatment plans. The authors also illustrate the ways in which the therapeutic relationship is crucially important – though largely unrecognized – element in grief therapy and offer guidelines for an attachment-informed view of the therapeutic relationship that can serve as the foundation of all grief therapy. Written by two highly experienced grief counselors, this volume is filled with instructive case vignettes and useful techniques that offer a universal and practical frame of reference for understanding grief therapy for clinicians of every theoretical persuasion.

Rediscovering Pierre Janet explores the legacy left by the pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist (1859–1947), from the relationship of between Janet and Freud, to the influence of his dissociation theory on contemporary psychotraumatology. Divided into three parts, the first section places Janetian psychological analysis and psychoanalysis in context with the foundational tenets of psychoanalysis, from Freud to relational theory, before the book explores Janet’s work on trauma and dissociation and its influence on contemporary thinking. Part three presents several contemporary psychotherapy approaches directly influenced by Janetian theory, including the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Rediscovering Pierre Janet draws together eminent scholars from a variety of backgrounds, each of whom has developed Janetian constructs according to his or her own theoretical and clinical models. It provides an integrative approach that offers contemporary perspectives on Janet’s work, and will be of significant interest to practicing psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychotherapists, especially those treating trauma-related dissociative disorders, as well as researchers with an interest in psychological trauma.

This volume seeks to explore the idea of identity as a flexible center of events around which aspects of the self and events in the outside world are organized. Historically, in much of the literature, identity was conceptualized as a somewhat fixed, unchanging construct. Scholars now have a greater awareness of more nuanced theories about identity and there is a greater willingness to accept that identity is not fixed, concrete, and permanent, but rather evolving and fluid. Although this volume discusses a wide variety of aspects of identity as it flexibly changes during adulthood in the face of numerous experiences, it is really addressing one key question. How adaptive and fluid is identity and how can we know ourselves as both continuing and changing? Exploring these ideas raises the importance of future research on adult identity. With a firm grounding in the historical and theoretical background of identity research, this volume begins by defining identity and the psychological “self” as a center around which the person’s behaviors and self-concepts revolve. The following chapters gather the wisdom of many writers who all accepted the challenge of talking about creating a flexible adult self and identity during adulthood. They come at this challenging question from many different perspectives using different tools. Some survey existing literature and theory, then summarize prior work in a meaningful way. Some discuss their own research; some reflect on personal experiences that have demanded a flexible identity. Also included in the coverage are discussions of methodology and validity issues for studies and scales of identity. With its dual focus on research and applied fields ranging across social and personality psychology, industrial/occupational psychology, cross-cultural psychology, mental health, existential issues, relationships, and demographic categories, Identity Flexibility During Adulthood: Perspectives on Adult Development is a fascinating and complex resource for psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, gerontologists, and all those interested in our changing identities.