Gilbert J. Greene

Trauma can result in a variety of symptoms and problems such as behavioral disorders, emotional dysregulation, sleep disturbances, recurring nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and learning and academic challenges. Children and adolescents who have posttraumatic stress disorder are usually presented to therapists in one of four clinical situations: (1) the traumatized child and parents request trauma-focused therapy, (2) the child with trauma history refuses treatment, (3) a parent is impaired by their own trauma history but does not want to receive treatment, (4) a child has experienced trauma but the parent wants to focus on a behavioral issue and symptoms rather than the trauma. Family Therapy for Treating Trauma offers a stand-alone family therapy approach for trauma survivors and provides a cross-culturally competent family treatment framework for working with trauma. It outlines both how to assess family patterns that reinforce or exacerbate effects of trauma and how to mobilize the healing power of family relationships to moderate or resolve effects of trauma. Via an integrative approach, the book offers flexible ways to adapt to client choices so as to enhance difficult to engage clients and families. It serves as a resource for professional audiences and can be offered as a text for courses on both family therapy and trauma treatment.

Too often in practice, there is a tendency to pathologize clients, requiring a diagnosis as part of the helping relationship. Suppose, however, that most of the client problems that social workers encounter have more to do with the vagaries of life and not with what clients are doing wrong. This powerful idea is the philosophy behind the strengths-based approaches to social work. This groundbreaking practice handbook takes this concept one step further, combining the different strengths-based approaches into an overarching model of solution-oriented social work for greater impact. The strengths perspective emphasizes client strengths, goal-setting, and a shared definition of positive outcome. Solution-focused therapy approaches ongoing problems when they have temporarily abated, amplifying exceptions as solutions. This natural but rarely explored pairing is one component in the challenging and effective practice framework presented here by the authors, two seasoned practitioners with over 50 years of combined experience. By integrating the most useful aspects of the major approaches, a step-by-step plan for action emerges. With this text in hand, you will: - Integrate elements from the strengths perspective, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and the strategic therapy of the Mental Research Institute (the MRI approach) into an effective and eclectic framework - Build and practice your skills using case examples, transcripts, and practical advice - Equip yourself with the tools you need to emphasize clients' strengths - Challenge the diagnosis-first medical model of behavioral health care - Collaborate with clients to get past thinking (first-order change), and more to acting "outside the box" (second-order change) - Learn to work with a wide variety of clients, including individuals, groups, and families; involuntary clients; clients with severe mental illness; and clients in crisis For any student or practitioner interested in working with clients towards collaborative and empowering change, this is the essential text.