1st Edition
Working with Childhood Memories and Avoidance in Trauma Counselling The Power of Remembering
About the Cover
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Childhood Focus: Exposing Hidden Trauma.
1. The Haunting Echoes of Childhood Ghosts
2. How Can Childhood Memories Be of Service?
3. The Invisible Trauma of ‘Unremarkable’ Childhoods
4. ‘What if?’ Keeping Ghosts in Their Closets
Part 2: The Power of Remembering: Working with Childhood Memories
5. Elusive Ghosts: Reporting Versus Zooming In
6. Pulling Ghosts from Their Closets
7. ‘What if?’ The Risks and Rewards of Remembering
Part 3: Avoidance Unmasked: How to Identify, Understand, and Respond Therapeutically
8. Humans and Their Natural Avoidance
9. The Taboos
10. Fear of Loss
11. Desire to Move On
12. ’What if?’ The Hidden Intelligence of Avoidance
Part 4: Therapy as a Chance to Heal. Give it your best shot! (Counsellor’s Role)
13. ‘Judge Judy’
14. Counsellor as an Active Participant
15. ‘What if?’ Exploring the Practitioner Responibility
Part 5: Therapy as a Chance to Heal. Give it your best shot! (Client’s Role)
16. Mental Health Services and Consumers
17. Raising a Capable Self-Parent
18. Counselling That Goes Beyond Appointments: Central, Not Sideline Task
19. ‘What if?’ The Heavy Demands of Trauma Work
20. Conclusion
Index
Biography
Kate Mikhailouskaya is an existential psychoanalytic psychotherapist specializing in childhood and complex trauma. Drawing on her extensive experience working with refugees, asylum seekers, and women in custody, she offers focused support and practical tools for those suffering from post-traumatic stress and other maladaptive effects of trauma. Alongside her clinical work, she develops and leads professional workshops for counsellors and psychotherapists, and provides clinical supervision to practitioners supporting clients in trauma recovery, offering guidance and expertise in the complexities of childhood and complex trauma counselling.
'This beautifully written, accessible book is an important addition to the literature on Complex Trauma. It highlights the importance of finding the impact of hidden trauma in many clinical presentations. It carefully navigates the reader into how such an exploration can be sensitively and therapeutically achieved. Emphasising the role of understandable avoidance in managing the trauma Mikhailouskaya clearly articulates, through many clinical examples, how the clinician can both appreciate and work with this avoidance. She describes how to release the ‘ghosts’ that can be buried in many of the presenting problems that are encountered in the consulting room. This is a must-have book for any mental health worker dealing in the delicate yet debilitating area of complex trauma.'
Peter Blake, child and adolescent psychotherapist, author of Making the Conscious Unconscious
'Kate Mikhailouskaya writes fluently, clearly and directly about the challenges and rewards of assisting clients to work through their childhood trauma. Her style is direct and personal--essential for today's world in which students and beginning counsellors are often inadequately equipped to read complex professional material that is full of specialised (and sometimes pretentious) language. For those raised with the internet and 'reading' confined to short videos and a page or two of text online, Kate's writing will bridge the gap and conveys the essence of its challenging content without disguising it in jargon. Her willingness to draw upon her personal experience as both a therapist and a client is welcome. She does not shy away from difficult issues and the challenges of client resistance to 'going there', but by the same token, she offers reassurance and comfort to her reader. 'I have learned how to do this work effectively, and so can you!'
Hugh Crago, psychotherapist in private practice, formerly Senior Lecturer in Counselling, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University and author of Entranced by Story (Routledge, 2014), The Stages of Life (Routledge, 2017) and The Circle Unbroken (Allen & Unwin, 1999)
