How to effectively engage traumatized clients, who avoid attachment, closeness, and painful feelings.

A large segment of the therapy population consist of those who are in denial or retreat from their traumatic experiences. Here, drawing on attachment-based research, the author provides clinical techniques, specific intervention strategies, and practical advice for successfully addressing the often intractable issues of trauma.

Trauma and the Avoidant Client will enhance the skills of all mental health practitioners and trauma workers, and will serve as a valuable, useful resource to facilitate change and progress in psychotherapy.

Contents:

• 1. What Do Avoidant Defenses Look Like?
• 2. Activating the Attachment System and Challenging the Client
• 3. Getting Started: Intervention Strategies
• 4. Facilitation of Mourning in Emotional Detachment
• 5. Building the Therapeutic Relationship
• 6. Understanding Countertransference
• 7. Putting the Treatment Components Together: The Case of Madeleine
• 8. Ending Therapy

Author Bio:

Robert T. Muller, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of clinical psychology at York University, and a supervising psychologist at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre. Dr. Muller specializes in the areas of trauma, attachment, and psychotherapy. The author of numerous scholarly articles, he is lead investigator in a multi-site program to treat intra-familial trauma. He has over 20 years of clinical experience in the field, and practices in downtown Toronto. He is also winner of the Written Media Award, from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.