Description

The Relevance of This Textbook

Those of us who have done clinical work for any length of time know that trauma is as ubiquitous as the many other psychosocial issues that we consider to be pervasive, for example, issues like alcoholism and substance abuse. We all have dealt with so many cases in which clients present with a plethora of other issues, but once we scratch the surface of the situation, we often learn that the real problem is not the  alcoholism or the substance abuse—or the depression, or the anger, or any number of other clinical issues that permeate the problems bringing people to mental health clinics or to the offices of private practitioners to seek help—rather, it is the underlying experience of trauma. Still, it has taken the helping professions some time to grapple with the ubiquity of trauma and to understand the effects of traumatic events on the people who experience them.

The major purpose of this book is to provide a much-needed text for a traumaspecific course in the preservice training of master’s level professional counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other human service providers. Because trauma is such a pervasive and overwhelming phenomenon, and because there are so many mental health clinicians practicing today without the advantage of having had trauma- or crisis related course work or supervision as a part of their respective curricula, such a text is relevant to and much needed by a variety of practicing human service providers.

This textbook offers a relatively comprehensive review of the various types of traumatic experiences; the human vulnerability for traumatic experiences across the life span; and the intersections among trauma, crisis, and disaster events. It discusses pertinent diagnostic and case conceptualization issues as well as presents individual and systems interventions and collaborations. The perspective from which this textbook was conceptualized and organized is one that is anchored in an ecological and systemic view of people’s psychosocial needs and interactions. A unique feature of this textbook is that, at the end of each chapter, the authors have provided a list of helpful resources for use by students, instructors, and clinicians. These resources are specific to the trauma-related topic of the chapter and include websites, manuals, films, instructional videos/DVDs, and a variety of other useful tools. In addition, most of the chapters have appendices that either offer a case study or explicate an important detail to assist readers in understanding the relevance of the chapter topic. An Instructors Manual is available from Springer; it includes sample syllabi for a semester-long course and a week-long seminar, along with discussion questions and activities for each chapter. Qualifi ed instructors can request the manual by e-mailing [email protected]