Lynne Angus

This book describes an evidence-based, short-term individual therapy that is highly effective in treating clients with trauma, through its emphasis on both narrative and emotion processes. Because dropout rates and noncompliance with exposure-based procedures are notoriously high in trauma therapies, effective treatment options are essential. Emotion-Focused Therapy for Trauma (EFTT) is an evidence-based, short-term individual therapy that has proven highly effective in treating clients with trauma through its emphasis on both narrative and emotion processes. A fundamental assumption underlying most trauma therapies, including EFTT, is that recovery requires the client to engage emotionally with trauma memories to achieve better affect regulation and self-understanding. EFTT draws upon storytelling as a fundamental aspect of the human experience that permits this kind of engagement with trauma memories, promoting a sense of continuity and self-coherence, and bringing meaning to the client amp rsquo s emotional responses. Richly illustrated with clinical examples and excerpts from therapy sessions, this book fully integrates theory, research, practice, and training.

In this book, Lynne E. Angus and Leslie S. Greenberg present a groundbreaking, empirically based model that integrates working with narrative and emotion processes in emotion-focused therapy (EFT). Individual chapters describe how the interaction between emotion and narrative creates a constantly evolving sense of self how clinicians can address both narrative and emotion processes to help clients create more adaptive, empowering meanings and sense of self and the importance of a strong therapeutic alliance. Engaging, in-depth case studies illustrate how the model can be applied to treatment of depression and emotional trauma.

In Narrative Therapy, Dr. Lynne Angus demonstrates her approach to psychotherapy. Researchers and practitioners from many backgrounds have identified client narrative expression as the common ground of social discourse in psychotherapy. Narrative therapy focuses on the client's understanding of his or her own story and how the client's emotions, actions, and problems fit into the context of the story. This approach seeks to reach one of three goals: to put "untold" aspects of the client's past into the life narrative, help clients emotionally enter and reauthor their own stories, or help clients construct new meanings in relation to stories that may emerge in therapy. In this session, Dr. Angus works with a client suffering from depression who has boundary issues with her family. Dr. Angus helps the client to "own" her story and recognize her own agency in improving her life.