Description
Book SynopsisEntering the tumultuous, dissociated world of the adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse presents an intimidating challenge for clinicians. But as the authors of this innovative book argue, therapists must be willing and able to work within the powerful and rapidly shifting relational paradigms of transference and countertransference commonly found in treatment of these patients. Such dual roles enacted in treatment include the unseeing, uninvolved parent and the unseen, neglected child the sadistic abuser and the helpless, enraged victim the idealized rescuer and the entitled child and the seducer and the seduced.This is the first model for treatment of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse that takes advantage of a relational approach and that integrates psychoanalytic thinking with the latest findings from the literature on psychological trauma and sexual abuse. Diverging from a more classical perspective, the authors view dissociation as the means by which a person adapts to
Table of Contents* Trauma and Childhood Sexual Abuse in Psychoanalysis * Long-Term Sequelae and Diagnosis of childhood Sexual Abuse * An Integrative Model of Childhood Sexual Abuse * Dissociation * Disclosure and the Recovery of Memories * Reality Testing and the Question of Validation * Exposure to Danger, the Erotization of Fear, and Compulsive Self-Abuse * The Impact of Trauma on Transference and Countertransference * Eight Transference-Countertransference Positions * Transference and Countertransference: A Case Example * Technical Considerations in Treatment * Concluding Thoughts: Theoretical Implications and Reconsiderations
