Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA comprehensive synthesis of past and present theory with pragmatic clinical approaches to traumatized patients. Integrating an historical perspective on the conceptual and political issues of sexual and physical abuse, together with a very candid, self-observing commentary on their own reactions, the authors richly contextualize their therapeutic interventions and countertransference. Salient treatment dilemmas and contentious sociopolitical issues such as "false memories" are examined in an open and thoughtful fashion. An important source of ideas and inspiration for psychotherapists working in this area. -- Frank W. Putnam, M.D., Chief, Dissociative Disorders Group, National Institute of Mental Health
Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma is a timely and impressive examination of the causes, effects, and therapeutic solutions to trauma. The Scharffs examine the psychoanalytic literature on trauma with meticulous attention and present the psychanalytic view in a lucid and fair-minded manner, all the more impressive given the emotionally intoxicating effect of the subject matter in contemporary America. Their own understanding of trauma and its treatment is presented through the moving accounts of the patients they have treated, giving this book a unique quality: somewhere between Havelock Ellis and Dickens. Not all will agree with their point of view, but if one book could embrace a topic as complex as that of trauma, it is hard to imagine a more lucid, moving, and generous presentation. -- Christopher Bollas, PhD, British Psychoanalytical Society
Table of ContentsChapter 1 1. The Traumatic Continuum Chapter 2 2. Post-Trauma, Multiplicity, and Childhood Memory Studies Chapter 3 3. Freudian and Object Relations Perspectives Chapter 4 4. From Traumatic Splits in the Self to Multiple Personality Chapter 5 5. The False Memory/Recovered Memory Debate Chapter 6 6. Repression and Dissociation Revisited Chapter 7 7. The Fate of Freud's Seduction Hypothesis Chapter 8 8. An Object Relations Re-Analysis of Dora Chapter 9 9. Focal Trauma in an Adult Couple Chapter 10 10. Repetition of Trauma in the Transference Chapter 11 11. Mother-Daughter Incest Chapter 12 12. Primal Scene Inclusion and Father-Daughter Incest Chapter 13 13. Recall of Childhood Sexual Trauma and Object Relations Technique Chapter 14 14. Trauma in Termination Chapter 15 15. Putting It Together: Theory and Technique in Trauma
