15. Monitor response to trauma
Identify, manage, tolerate, resolve own
Remain grounded
Identify, manage
relational connection
Pay attention to what’s happening to
you
Walk into the past; stay present
The Challenge of HOLDING
18. Begin
Safety
Contained
Appropriate and
consistent
boundaries
Effective
communication
Education
Coping and
managing
Timelines
Experiential
Healing
Move on
12 Step programs
19. Integrate
DBT
EMDR
Experiential
Somatic
Experiencing
Film (recording)
Film (movies)
Family Process
(Experiential)
Family Therapy
Feminist Theory
Play
Beach
20. Techniques of Validation
Simple thank you.
Reflective listening.
Dynamic summary
Validate
I comprehend, not understand
Ask permission before confronting
behaviors or incongruities. “I would
like to challenge that statement,
thought…may I.”
21. Walk into past; stay in present
Stay curious and present
Therapist observing ego: Client
observing ego
Group Themes
Trauma therapists travel a relatively unknown territory different from individual therapy and psychodynamic group therapy. Trauma narratives alter group therapy and remain grounded with the histories of sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect and violence …loss, in the waves of countertransference, transference and vicarious trauma reactions.
Cope with feelings, memories, loss.Countertransference issues: Trust, control, honestyActivated and reenacted during trauma work.
Repetitive countertransference: When therapists repeat the meaning of their own stories with out ever changing it or learning from it. It goes with them into group and reenacts their own issues.Example: Not being heardReparative countertransference: When the therapist: replays their past and attempts to repair the damage done. see their groups’ suffering, it unconsciously revives their own suffering. wants to alleviate the pain by some act. imagine they can repair past neglect; a solution desired but were unable to achieve during their formative years.The reparative countertransference assumes different forms. For instance,group therapists can have a problem of volunteering experts whomthe patient ought to see: doctors, dentists, chiropractors. Or, in a moresubtle version, they compulsively repair the damage caused by the absenceof a parent; they attend concerts given by patients whose parents ignorethem and their efforts.Resolving the reparative countertransference frees therapists to do thejob which is uniquely theirs--understanding the group. (Ormont, 2008 pg.21)
Matched countertansference is where group therapist feels the same feelings as the group or individual member; The patient feels sad ; the therapist feels sad. No empathy is involved. The therapist is just matching the patient's emotional state. We are particularly subject to this reaction when we touch on the preoedipalpatterns in a patient. It seems to stem from the time when the mother and child could melt into each other with no boundaries betweenthem.‘The matched countertransference can give us particular trouble if wetake these reactions to be solely our own. In other words, we are unawarethat we are merely mirroring the patient's reactions and accept them as our own invention.’Complementary countertransference is where the therapist feels and takes on those roles that the group or individual member casts upon her.Finally, we come to the complementc~ry countertransference. This is theresponse of therapists to the roles in which their group members cast them.As before, the therapists identify with the group members. But withcomplementary countertransference, the identification is with importantincorporated objects of their childhood.
Understanding trauma and the brain; immature development; attachment; repetition compulsion; the process of healing;intergretion
