Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

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. -- Christopher Bollas, PhD, British Psychoanalytical Society

Author Bio

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.