Trauma Trust And Memory

Trauma is one of the most important topics discussed throughout the clinical, social and cultural field. Social traumatization, as we meet it in the aftermath of genocide, war and persecution, is targeted at whole groups and thus affects the individual's immediate holding environment, cutting it off from an important resilience factor; further on, social trauma is implemented in a societal context, thus involving the surrounding society in the traumatic process. Both conditions entail major consequences for the impact and prognosis of the resulting individual posttraumatic disorders as well as for the social and cultural consequences. The volume connects clinical and epidemiological studies on the sequelae of social trauma to reflections from social psychology and the humanities. Post-war and post-dictatorial societies are in particular marked by the effects of massive, large group traumatization, and if these are not acknowledged, explored, and mourned, the unprocessed cumulative trauma that has become deeply embedded in the collective memory leads to periodical reactivations. To address social trauma, an interdisciplinary approach is required.

This book explores the intersection of clinical and social aspects of traumatic experiences in postdictatorial and post-war societies, forced migration, and other circumstances of collective violence. Contributors outline conceptual approaches, treatment methods, and research strategies for understanding social traumatizations in a wider conceptual frame that includes both clinical psychology and psychiatry. Accrued from a seven year interdisciplinary and international dialogue, the book presents multiple scholarly and practical views from clinical psychology and psychiatry to social and cultural theory, developmental psychology, memory studies, law, research methodology, ethics, and education. Among the topics discussed: Theory of social trauma Psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic approaches to social trauma Memory studies Developmental psychology of social trauma Legal and ethical aspects Specific methodology and practice in social trauma research Social Trauma: An International Textbook fills a critical gap between clinical and social theories of trauma, offering a basis for university teaching as well as an overview for all who are involved in the modern issues of victims of social violence. It will be a useful reference for students, teachers, and researchers in psychology, medicine, education, and political science, as well as for therapists and mental health practitioners dealing with survivors of collective violence, persecution, torture and forced migration.

Clinical practice and legal issues in trauma and memory. -- Mental health and memories of traumatic events. -- Cognitive and physiological perspectives on trauma and memory. -- Evidence and controversies in understanding memories for traumatic events.

In Trauma and Memory, bestselling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue that traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolutely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Building on his 45 years of successful treatment of trauma and utilizing case studies from his own practice, Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps. While acknowledging that memory can be trusted, he argues that the only truly useful memories are those that might initially seem to be the least reliable: memories stored in the body and not necessarily accessible by our conscious mind. While much work has been done in the field of trauma studies to address "explicit" traumatic memories in the brain (such as intrusive thoughts or flashbacks), much less attention has been paid to how the body itself stores "implicit" memory, and how much of what we think of as "memory" actually comes to us through our (often unconsciously accessed) felt sense. By learning how to better understand this complex interplay of past and present, brain and body, we can adjust our relationship to past trauma and move into a more balanced, relaxed state of being. Written for trauma sufferers as well as mental health care practitioners, Trauma and Memory is a groundbreaking look at how memory is constructed and how influential memories are on our present state of being.

Trauma and Memory will assist mental health experts and professionals, as well as the interested public, in understanding the scientific issues around trauma memory, and how this differs from other areas of memory. This book provides accounts of the damage caused to psychology and survivors internationally by false memory groups and ideas. It is unequivocally passionate about the truth of trauma memory and exposing the damaging disinformation that can seep into the field. Contributors to this book include leading professionals from the field of criminology, law, psychology and psychotherapy in the UK and USA, along with survivor-professionals who understand only too well the damage such disinformation can cause. This book is a valuable resource for mental health professionals of all disciplines including those involved with relevant law and public health policy. It will also help survivors and survivor-professionals in gaining insight into the forces resisting disclosure.

This volume opens up new ground in the field of social representations research by focusing on contexts involving mass violence, rather than on relatively stable societies. Representations of violence are not only symbolic, but in the first place affective and bodily, especially when it comes to traumatic experiences. Exploring the responses of researchers, educators, students and practitioners to long-term engagement with this emotionally demanding material, the book considers how empathic knowledge can make working in this field more bearable and deepen our understanding of the Holocaust, genocide, war, and mass political violence. Bringing together international contributors from a range of disciplines including anthropology, clinical psychology, history, history of ideas, religious studies, social psychology, and sociology, the book explores how scholars, students, and professionals engaged with violence deal with the inevitable emotional stresses and vicarious trauma they experience. Each chapter draws on personal histories, and many suggest new theoretical and methodological concepts to investigate emotional reactions to this material. The insights gained through these reflections can function protectively, enabling those who work in this field to handle adverse situations more effectively, and can yield valuable knowledge about violence itself, allowing researchers, teachers, and professionals to better understand their materials and collocutors. Engaging Violence: Trauma, memory, and representation will be of key value to students, scholars, psychologists, humanitarian aid workers, UN personnel, policy makers, social workers, and others who are engaged, directly or indirectly, with mass political violence, war, or genocide.

This book is a guide to the controversies swirling around recovered memories of trauma, especially childhood sexual abuse. The contributors provide a road map to the research on memory, including ways in which it is affected by trauma. Therapeutic approaches to patients suffering the after effects of trauma are considered in detail.

Intimacy and Alienation puts forward the author's unique paradigm for psychotherapy and counselling based on the assumption that each patient has suffered a disruption of the `self', and that the goal of the therapist is to identify and work with that disruption. Using many clinical illustrations, and drawing on self psychology, attachment therapy and theories of trauma, Russell Meares looks at the nature of self and how it develops, before going on to explore the form and feeling of experience when self is disrupted in a traumatic way, and focusing on ways towards the restoration of the self. Written in an accessible style from the author's singular perspective, Intimacy and Alienation will appeal to professionals in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, social work and psychiatry, as well as to students and the lay reader.