Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma: (The Library of Object Relations)

The Scharffs draw from their object relations therapy with individuals, families, and couples recovering from trauma and abundance of relevant clinical examples described in tehir characteristically personal and vivid style. Their treatment approach, influenced by Fairbairn, Klein, and Winnicott, is respectful of the patient's experience. They advise avoiding premature interpretations tha impose their own reality on patients because this traumatizes them just as their abuser did. In order to work well with these traumatized people, the clinician must be able to tolerate ambiguity and sustain longterm therapy, for it takes the patience of waiting and wondering to recover deeply repressed memories, explore them thoroughly, and evaluate their meaning and importance for the patient. Object relations theory offers a bridge between individual and societal experiences of trauma and prepares the way for a less dissociated response to trauma issues among the mental health professions and their psychotherapy literature.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 1. The Traumatic Continuum Chapter 2 2. Post-Trauma, Multiplicity, and Childhood Memory Studies Chapter 3 3. Freudian and Object Relations Perspectives Chapter 4 4. From Traumatic Splits in the Self to Multiple Personality Chapter 5 5. The False Memory/Recovered Memory Debate Chapter 6 6. Repression and Dissociation Revisited Chapter 7 7. The Fate of Freud's Seduction Hypothesis Chapter 8 8. An Object Relations Re-Analysis of Dora Chapter 9 9. Focal Trauma in an Adult Couple Chapter 10 10. Repetition of Trauma in the Transference Chapter 11 11. Mother-Daughter Incest Chapter 12 12. Primal Scene Inclusion and Father-Daughter Incest Chapter 13 13. Recall of Childhood Sexual Trauma and Object Relations Technique Chapter 14 14. Trauma in Termination Chapter 15 15. Putting It Together: Theory and Technique in Trauma

About the Author :
Jill Savege Scharff, M.D., co-director of the International Institute of Object Relations Therapy, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, and teaches child analysis at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. David E. Scharff, M. D., co-director of the International Institute of Object Relations Therapy, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

Review :
Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma is a timely and impressive examination of the causes, effects, and therapeutic solutions to trauma. The Scharffs examine the psychoanalytic literature on trauma with meticulous attention and present the psychanalytic view in a lucid and fair-minded manner, all the more impressive given the emotionally intoxicating effect of the subject matter in contemporary America. Their own understanding of trauma and its treatment is presented through the moving accounts of the patients they have treated, giving this book a unique quality: somewhere between Havelock Ellis and Dickens. Not all will agree with their point of view, but if one book could embrace a topic as complex as that of trauma, it is hard to imagine a more lucid, moving, and generous presentation.