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Course Overview

Session 10: Healing the Healers

Jeffery Smith, MD

Synopsis: Being a witness to trauma can be traumatic, and as therapists, we must witness.

Reading: Chapter 27, Horowitz, "Vicarious Traumatization." Chapter 28, "Empathic Strain and Countertransference"

Theme: To be completed

McCann & Perlman

Three Examples, Tom, obsessing about breakins to house. Joan: Distrustful of father stroking daughter's hair. Ann, nightmare of rape.
Concepts: Burnout, Countertransference, Constructivist Self-Development. Depen
Schemas: Dependency/trust, Safety, Power, Independence, Esteem, Intimacy, Frame of reference.
Development of a support group.

Wilson & Lindy: Empathic Strain

Normative Reactions: Empathic disequilibrium, Empathic withdrawal.
Countertransference--Overidentification reactions and Avoidance reactions..
Personal reactions
Factors behind the type of reaction: Trauma story, Therapist factors, Client factors, Institututional / organizational factors.

Therapist Reactions: Page 539

Phtysiological reactions
Emotional Reactions
Psychological Reactions
Behavioral reactions

Need for supervision:

Presented as main mode for handling therapist reactions