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The focus of this book is on detailed case histories of patients with severe traumas. The author takes us through the successive stages of analysis and gives us a graphic impression of the progress of her diagnostic and therapeutic insights into traumatic processes and their treatment. Her main interest is in the development of the transference/countertransference relationship. Traumatic experience has to be actualised within that relationship if it is to be treated successfully, only in this way can therapeutic change become a feasible proposition. Traumatic micro-processes and trauma-sequel phenomena in transference and countertransference are described and conceptualized. The author demonstrates her point with examples taken from clinical practice: illnesses experienced as traumatic; separation traumas; childhood experiences of violence; adult experiences of violence: war, torture, and displacement that can engender PTSD. This book is a genuinely original contribution to psychoanalytic treatment of traumas.

Synthesizing insights from psychiatry, social psychology, and anthropology, Voices of Trauma: Treating Survivors across Cultures sets out a framework for therapy that is as culturally informed as it is productive. An international panel of 23 therapists offers contextual knowledge on PTSD, coping skills, and other trauma sequelae as they affect survivors of traumatic events. Case studies from Egypt to Chechnya demonstrate various therapeutic approaches (and the Cultural Formation of Diagnosis from the DSM-IV), often integrated with social agencies outside the clinical setting. Authors explore the balance of inter- and intrapersonal factors in reactions to trauma, dispel misconceptions that hinder progress in treatment, and provide profound examples of mutual trust and empathy, even how the wounded may heal the therapist. Highlights of the coverage: Silence as a coping strategy: Sudanese refugee women; Individual and group identity, Western and non-Western healing: a Chinese woman in Hong Kong; Mother/infant psychotherapy with a Kosovar family; Trauma and the bicultural self: New York's Dominican community and the crash of Flight 587; Why war? Why genocide? A social psychology theory of collective violence; Transference, countertransference, and supervisory issues in intercultural treatment. Today's political climate has made refugee mental health a growing public health issue. Voices of Trauma gives clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, rescue and social workers, the tools to create healing on a global scale.