Trauma Counseling

This book offers a relatively comprehensive review of the various types of traumatic experiences; the human vulnerability for traumatic experiences across the life span; and the intersections among trauma, crisis, and disaster events. The book is divided into six sections. Section I offers foundation for understanding the various trauma-associated issues in the book. Chapters introduce a bioecological and systemic perspective of trauma, provide the historical context for how we have come to regard trauma-related issues, explicating a number of the controversies surrounding the development of a clinical understanding of trauma, discuss a variety of theoretical contexts related to trauma counseling, and detail the neurobiological effects of trauma and psychopharmacology. In the second section relevant constructs are explicated, such as loss and grief. This section discuss issues of disability and trauma survivorship, sexual trauma, trauma experienced in adolescence, intimate partner violence, elder abuse and traumatic experiences associated with criminal victimization, among others. Intolerance and trauma of heat is the topic of discussion of Section III, which provides existential perspectives on the psychology of evil and highlights how racial and ethnic intolerance serve as a framework for violence and trauma. In the fourth section, chapters illuminate the profound impact that large-scale violence and natural and human-made disasters can have on individuals, families, communities, and nations. Section V offer a framework for beginning to consider the nature of clinical work with clients who have experienced traumatic events. The last section of the book focuses on collaborative work in the area of trauma counseling.