A new model of therapeutic action, one that heals trauma and
dissociation, is overtaking the mental health field. It is not just
trauma, but the dissociation of the self, that causes emotional pain and
difficulties in functioning. This book discusses how people are
universally subject to trauma, what trauma is, and how to understand and
work with normative as well as extreme dissociation.
In this new model, the client and the practitioner are both traumatized
and flawed human beings who affect each other in the mutual process that
promotes the healing of the client--psychotherapy. Elizabeth Howell
explains the dissociative, relational, and attachment reasons that
people blame and punish themselves. She covers the difference between
repression and dissociation, and how Freud's exclusive focus on
repression and the one-person fantasy Oedipal model impeded recognition
of the serious consequences of external trauma, including child abuse.
The book synthesizes trauma/dissociation perspectives and addresses new
structural models.