Living With Terror, Working With Trauma: A Clinician's Handbook

Terrorism and war have engendered a special set of people with distinctive and uniquely contemporary therapeutic needs. How do we cope with the personal experience of political violence? Living with Terror, Working with Trauma addresses the ways that mental health practitioners can assist survivors of terrorism. Drawing upon the experience of leading practitioners and renowned experts throughout the world, this edited volume explores the most innovative methods currently employed to help people heal—and even grow—from traumatic experiences. It argues for a multi-dimensional approach to understanding and treating the effects of terror-related trauma. Comprehensive in scope, Living with Terror, Working with Trauma covers psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, existential, and neuro-physiological techniques for working with individuals and groups, children and adults, both in the clinic and in the field. The contributors share their personal and clinical experiences in Hiroshima, Cambodia, the Middle East, Vietnam, and other sites of mass violence and terror, including the Holocaust. A special section is devoted to the September 11th. As it addresses the basic existential challenge of finding meaning and creatively transforming one's experience of terror and trauma, this volume explores the territory, identifies the key problems, and presents effective therapeutic solutions.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Part I: The Meaning of Trauma Chapter 2 Psychic Trauma and Traumatic Object Loss Chapter 3 Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolongued and Repeated Trauma Chapter 4 Psychic Trauma and Fears of Annihilation Chapter 5 Resilience: Accommodation and Recovery Chapter 6 Disruption: Individual and Collective Threats Part 7 Part II: Living with Terror Chapter 8 Is Hiroshima Our Text? Chapter 9 Cambodians and Massive Trauma: What We Have Learned after Twenty Years Chapter 10 Five Wars, Five Traumas: Experience and Insight from Clincial Work in Israel's Trenches Chapter 11 Wounds of War: The Aftermath of Combat in Vietnam Chapter 12 Children's Responses to Terrorist Attacks Chapter 13 Defeated Dreams: The Tragedy of Survivors Part 14 Part III: Working with Trauma Chapter 15 Early Interventions with Victims of Terrorism Chapter 16 Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience Chapter 17 Optimizing Affect Function in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Trauma Chapter 18 An Eye for an Eye: Fantasies of Revenge in the Aftermath of Trauma Chapter 19 A Humanistic Approach to the Psychology of Trauma Chapter 20 Empathic Strain, Compassion Fatigue, and Countertransference in the Treatment of Trauma and PTSD Chapter 21 The Complexities of Working with Terror Part 22 Part IV: September 11 Chapter 23 Reflections on September 11 Chapter 24 Responses of the Mental Health Community to the World Trade Center Disaster Chapter 25 Large Group Destruction: A Group Analyst at Ground Zero Chapter 26 Terrorism on U.S. Soil: Remembering Past Trauma and Retraumatization Chapter 27 Skyscrapers and Bones: Memorials to Dead Objects in the Culture of Desire Part 28 Part V: Looking Toward the Future Chapter 29 Traumatized Societies and Psychological Care: Expanding the Concept of Preventive Medicine Chapter 30 Storytelling as a Way to Work Through Intractable Conflicts: The TRT German-Jewish Experience and Its Relevance to the Palestinian-Israeli Context Chapter 31 No Amount of Suffering Chapter 32 Terror and Forgiveness Chapter 33 Creative and Clinical Transformations of Trauma: Private Pain in the Public Domain

About the Author :
Danielle Knafo, Ph.D., is associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Long Island University's C. W. Post Campus, and supervisor and faculty member at Adelphi University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. She has written and lectured extensively on a variety of topics, including terror and trauma. She maintains a private practice in Great Neck, New York.

Review :
Danielle Knafo has compiled an impressive list of contributors in psychology, psychiatry, and traumatology, many of whom are identified as psychoanalysts, but there are several who specialize in the trauma field as well; therefore the reader will appreciate divergent perspectives coming from different albeit complementary disciples....This is a definitive sourcebook on the interface between psychoanalysis and the field of trauma studies. There are some profound psychoanalytic insights in Knafo's collection of essays, but what makes this book a success is how she is able engage in dialogue traumatologists who challenge and expand our current conceptualizations of trauma....This is a definitive sourcebook on the interface between psychoanalysis and the field of trauma studies.