Not Trauma Alone: Therapy for Child Abuse Survivors in Family and Social Context

by Steven Gold

Book Overview

How is an individual to lead a comfortable, productive existence when he or she was never taught the skills necessary for effective living? Adult survivors of child abuse often face this dilemma.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583910271
• ISBN13: 9781583910276
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 302 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Very Helpful Insights

I had heard before that a person's family of origin had an impact, sometimes a big impact, on how long it took and how difficult it could be to recover from abuse. This book does a great job at explaining why and how this is true. It was written for professionals but wasn't too difficult to read and follow. If this is an idea you hadn't considered before or just wanted more information about it, this book will probably be very helpful. It was for me.

A "Survivor's" perspective.

I had the pleasure to meet Dr. Gold at a conference in New York City for male survivors of CSA and was blown away by the presentation he gave. I was even more impressed by the brief discussions we had after his presentation. Dr. Gold is a therapist of rare insight, patience, dedication, and intellect (all essential traits in anyone who works with suriviors). Not Trauma Alone is a standout work in the field of working with clients who have experience prolonged periods of childhood abuse. (And it's a tragically rare book in this area as well). His work shows the limitations of viewing us through the lens of trauma alone. Though it's easy to grasp onto the horror of the experience of sexual abuse and see that as the lynchpin of the problems that adult survivors face, the truth is that these attacks often happen in a much broader context of a childhood marked by neglect, abandonment, fear, and powerlessness. This experience can often leave a child marked and vulnerable to the manipulations of abusers, but more importantly this kind of upbringing leaves the adult who survives struggling to adapt and feel comfortable living in a complex world. This book is essential reading for any therapist who has clients who have suffered from significant childhood abuse, and for any survivor who is looking to gain a greater understanding of why they feel the way they do.

this is a great book

I think there is an unfortunate tendency among some therapists even today to focus primarily on child sexual abuse (and perhaps to a lesser extent, child physical abuse) as the source of the client's problems. The treatment approach that ensues all too often involves one of two things: focusing exclusively on the damaging effects of the traumas, which in the 80's and early 90's often promoted deterioration rather than increased functioning, or, in reaction to this, avoiding the subject altogether and focusing on the biological basis of mental illness and an often superficial examination of present-day problems. This book provides another approach. As other reviewers have stated, it emphasizes the essential fact that many child abuse survivors grow up alone. If not physically alone, then emotionally abandoned in many cases. This points out the difficulties of living with insecure attachment, a subject that is getting more attention among therapists these days. However, Dr. Gold does not stop with a conclusion that adding attachment theory to trauma theory will relieve the client's problems. He also says that many clients are missing essential life skills (and I mean basic skills, such as regulating emotions to avoid suicidal crises and be able to function; paying bills; keeping the house clean; maintaining a healthy weight, and establishing a stable attendance record at a job, among others). These skills are so obvious to many people that some therapists (along with the general public) expect child abuse survivors to know them. However, they all too often don't and are blamed when they can't function well (or even at all) in life. This book shows how to remedy these problems. Another benefit of this book is the inclusion of experiences of male survivors, who were until recently often neglected in the child abuse literature. I am using the word "survivor" in this view for lack of a better term, but Dr. Gold points out the limitation of this term; that it does not account for the non-abuse related aspects of the person. Dr. Gold points out that clients usually don't enter therapy with the goal of talking about child abuse experiences. They want to know why they can't make their lives work. In his approach, some processing of the trauma may be necessary, but it is put in context of the overall life of the person. This book makes the reader conceptualize child abuse and its sequelae in a totally different way and I strongly recommend it. As another reviewer pointed out, it is well-written and free from the jargon and highly technical language of most professional mental health books. My only caveat is that no one book, including this one, can be viewed as the Bible for explaining an individual's life. In therapy, the individual's experience is more important than any book. But I think the author would agree with this. His approach is highly instructive and compassionate.

This should be on every therapist's bookshelf

This is a book you have to have. It's an `I can't put it down' book. It makes you wonder how you ever managed to work with traumatized clients without it. It makes you realise why you weren't getting anywhere, why what you were doing in therapy wasn't good enough to help clients move on from their past trauma. Traditionally therapy with this group of clients focussed heavily on the trauma. This book takes the reader beyond that. For once a book is looking at more than just the trauma in the past as something to be dealt with. It shows the reader why difficulties today must be tackled in a different way when the client has a trauma history than with other clients. But it opens your eyes to ways to work with other clients too. When I am asked to recommend a book for therapists with trauma clients this is the one I choose. It is the only book that helps one understand why everyday life is so difficult for such clients, something no other book does in such depth or in such a useful way. Reading this book is like waking up to what life is really like for this group of clients; you will never see a client in the same way again. Now you will know why they behave as they do, why making changes is so difficult and why what works with other client groups doesn't work so well when the client comes from an abusive or neglectful family. Steve Gold shows clearly how incidents of abuse are set within a family context that does not provide the tools for dealing with everyday life in an effective manner. Because of the general family context in which ongoing abuse occurs, these clients have always lacked vital coping mechanisms and abilities that are usually learned during an adequate childhood. The model proposed gives one a framework to work effectively and help the client face both the fears of the past and the fears of today. It places the trauma processing within a therapy that enables the client to grow rather than staying focussed on trauma alone. It provides the reader with a model to use to effectively understand, assess and teach the vital abilities that were never taught in childhood. It opens your eyes to the context in which these clients developed all their strategies to cope, ones that do not help them now. This is a book that mustn't be missed. It is one you will take off the shelf again and again. Whatever DSM category your client fits into, if they have problems that arose from a traumatic childhood this is the book to guide you. It is the most important book you will ever buy.

A Must Read

When Not Trauma Alone: Therapy for Child Abuse Survivors in Family and Social Context was first published, I quickly ordered it from my local bookstore. I had known Steve Gold as a supervisor, a dissertation committee member and a friend and I absolutely cherished him and his work. But the book sat on my shelf for over a year before I finally picked it up and read it from beginning to end. Maybe I thought I knew what Steve had to say. Indeed he was my clinical supervisor in a yearlong practicum with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and my professor in a couple of graduate school courses. Perhaps I was thinking that my clinical conceptualization and treatment of clients, not just trauma survivors, were so greatly affected by Steve's influence that I could indeed learn no more.How wrong I was!!! Not Trauma Alone is one of the best books I ever read. It did not read as so many mental health treatment textbooks do. Steve's insight, compassion and humor really shine through and are truly inspirational. From the title of the chapters (e.g., Alone: Growing Up in an Ineffective Family) to the specific skills taught (e.g., self-sufficient problem resolution), this book is a must-read. My reactions to the content of the book, in particular the clinical vignettes, were vast. At some points, I laughed out loud, at other times, my heart felt heavy in sorrow. But most importantly, my reactions were, "Right on Steve!!!!" and "This is why I am in this profession" and these are the kinds of mental health practitioners I am proud to say I am a part of. I encourage everyone I know in the mental health field (and a few psychologically-minded friends who aren't) to read this incredible piece.