Empathy in the Treatment of Trauma and PTSD

John P. Wilson, Ph.D., Rhiannon Brywnn Thomas, Ph.D.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780415947589
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135937454
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Santé mentale en psychologie

Empathy in the Treatment of Trauma and PTSD examines how professionals are psychologically impacted by their work with trauma clients. A national research study provides empirical evidence, documenting the struggle for professionals to maintain therapeutic equilibrium and empathic attunement with their trauma clients. Among the many important findings of this study, all participants reported being emotionally and psychologically affected by the work, often quite profoundly leading to changes in worldview, beliefs about the nature of humankind and the meaning of life.

John P. Wilson and Rhiannon Thomas set out to understand how to heal those who experience empathic strain in the course of their professional specialization. The data included in the book allows for the development of conceptual dynamic models of effective management of empathic strain, which may cause vicarious traumatization, burnout and serious countertransference processes.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Transmitting Unconscious of Traumatization
• 2 The Matrix of Empathy
• 3 Structure and Dynamics of Interpersonal Processes in Treatment of PTSD
• 4 A Model of Empathy in Trauma Work
• 5 The Balance Beam: Modes of Empathic Attunement and Empathic Strain in Post-Traumatic Therapy
• 6 Empathic Rupture and Affect Dysregulation: Countertransference in the Treatment of PTSD
• 7 Anxiety and Defensiveness in the Trauma Therapist
• 8 Empathy and Traumatoid States
• 9 Therapist Reactions in Post-Traumatic Therapy: A Study of Empathic Strain in Trauma Work
• 10 Understanding the Nature of Traumatoid States
• 11 The Positive Therapeutic Effects of Empathic Attunement and the Transformation of Trauma
• Appendix