Approaches to Psychic Trauma

This book examines the nature of treatments available for traumatized people, describing common elements, as well as those which are specific to each treatment. It presents diverse theories and tools for understanding how history and personalities affect the individual. Complete with case studies, it is ideal for practitioners at all levels.

Approaches to Psychic Trauma: Theory and Practice covers the many developments in the relatively new field of trauma therapy. It examines the nature of the wide variety of treatments available for traumatized people, describing elements they have in common and those that are specific to each treatment. Originating with the editor’s clinical experience working with patients from the former German Democratic Republic, contributors then discuss alternative therapies including ego psychology, self psychology, object-relations theory, attachment theory, psychoanalysis, and art therapies. Case studies further illustrate the application and practice.

Approaches to Psychic Trauma presents a diversity of theories and tools centering on trauma and history, and through the microcosm of individual personalities one may have a close-up view of how historical events, as well as personal narratives and reactions to them, consciously and unconsciously affect the individual.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: A General Introduction to the Nature of Trauma

1 On the Development of the Concept of Trauma: Definition, Elements, and Relevant Terms

Bernd Huppertz

2 The Psychiatric Approach, the Subgroups of Posttraumatic Syndromes, and the Neurobiology of Stress and Trauma

Bernd Huppertz

Part II: Dimensions of Trauma

3 Development and Trauma: Recapitulation of Traumatic Themes in Early Interaction

Louise Newman

4 Historical and Intergenerational Trauma: Radioactive Transmission of the Burdens of History—Destructive versus Creative Transmission

Yolanda Gampel

5 The Reality of Horror: Psychic Survival in the Face of Massive Trauma

Louise Newman

6 The Role of Cumulative Micro-trauma in Psychic Life: An Abridged Description of Injurious Relational Functioning

Margaret Crastnopol

7 Building Resilience: The Example of Ambiguous Loss

Pauline Boss

Part III: Social Psychological Aspects of the Totalitarian Communist System

8 Political Psychology, Effects of Historical Processes, and Cultural Trauma

Bernd Huppertz

9 Sociohistorical Overview of Germany: The Development of the Federal Republic of Germany (GFR) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR)

Bernd Huppertz

10 The False Self

Adrian Sutton

11 Totalitarian and Post-totalitarian Matrices: Reflective Citizens Facing Social-Psychic Retreats

Marina Mojović

12 A Post-totalitarian Group: A Collective False Self or Posttraumatic Growth?

Helena Klímová

Part IV: Clinical Material

Bernd Huppertz

13 Case History Summaries

14 The Case of Mr. Q

15 The Case of Mrs. U

16 The Case of Mr. R

17 The Case of Mrs. O

18 The Case of Mrs. P

19 The Case of Mrs. M

20 The Case of Mrs. N

21 The Case of Mrs. B

Part V: Trauma Treatment Grounded inPsychodynamic-Psychoanalytic Approaches

22 Challenges of Treatment with Traumatized Individuals from a Modern Freudian Perspective

Anna Balas

23 Trauma and Inner Reality: A Kleinian and Post-Kleinian Perspective

Mariângela Mendes de Almeida

24 Trauma Treatment from the Winnicottian Perspective

Adrian Sutton

25 Theoretical and Clinical Implications of the Concept of the Zero Process: An Ego-Psychology Perspective

Joseph Fernando

26 Extreme Traumatization: Conceptualization and Treatment from the Perspective of Object Relations and Modern Research

Sverre Varvin

27 Contemporary Self Psychology and Its Treatment of Traumatized Patients

Koichi Togashi and Amanda Kottler

28 Relational Psychoanalysis and Trauma: The Significance of Witnessing and Containing

Adrienne Harris

29 Trauma Work via the Lens of Attachment Theory: Gaslight—Reality Distortion by Familiar Attachment Figures

Orit Badouk Epstein

Part VI: Arts Therapies

30 Embodied Mentalizing or “Meaning-Making” in Music Therapy with Traumatized Children

Jacqueline Z. Robarts

31 Trauma Work in Play and Drama Therapy: The Importance of the Theatre of Resilience

Sue Jennings

Part VII: Other Trauma Treatment Approaches

32 Mentalization and Its Role in Processing Trauma

Nicolas Lorenzini, Chloe Campbell, and Peter Fonagy

33 The Treatment of Trauma: The Neurosequential Model and “Take Two”

Annette Jackson, Margarita Frederico, Allison Cox, and Carlina Black

Part VIII: Summary and Outlook

34 Conclusion

Bernd Huppertz

Index

About the Editor and Contributors