Abstract

Counselling Survivors of Domestic Abuse explains how counsellors can facilitate recovery from domestic abuse within a secure, supportive therapeutic relationship.

There has been growing awareness in recent years of the impact and consequences of domestic abuse, especially the relationship between domestic abuse and mental health. To appreciate the nature of trauma caused by domestic abuse, professionals need to understand its complex nature and the psychobiological impact of repeated exposure to control and terror. This book examines the therapeutic techniques and specific challenges, such as secondary traumatic stress, faced by professionals when working with survivors of domestic abuse. The author stresses the importance of identifying domestic abuse so that it can be addressed in the therapeutic process to aid recovery, and explores issues such as safety and protection, the long-term effects of abuse and the importance of grieving to the restoration of hope.

This book is essential reading for counsellors, therapists, social workers, mental health professionals, health care professionals including GPs and midwives, managers of refuges, legal professionals and all those working with survivors of domestic abuse.

The book is hugely on psychosocial aspects of domestic abuse as well as drawing together applicable clinical thinking from a wide range of theoretical orientations, with extensive bibliography and indexes. A holistic approach is reflected in chapters on understanding the domestic abuse relationship, assessing risk, clinical engagement, hope and, importantly, impact on the professional. This is a useful teaching and study aid, a reference book for agencies to keep to hand, as well as a 'secure base' for domestic abuse specialists to develop and refresh their skills, thinking and case management.
Therapy Today
Christiane Sanderson is a lecturer in Psychology at London University, Birkbeck College, and Consultant in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University. With 20 years' experience working in child sexual abuse interpersonal abuse and trauma, she has run consultancy and training for parents, teachers, social workers, nurses, therapists, counsellors, and the Metropolitan Police Service. She is author of Counselling Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, 3rd edition and The Seduction of Children: Empowering Parents and Teachers to Protect Children from Child Sexual Abuse, also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
This is a thoughtful, informative and thorough response to the complex and sensitive issues surrounding counselling for those who have experienced domestic abuse. Initially, the book examines the extent and nature of domestic abuse, before turning its attention to the therapeutic role of working with survivors highlighting the importance of safety and the restoration of self-empowerment. It is a great book and will be invaluable to professionals working within the therapeutic process, whether GPs, mental health professionals, counsellors, midwives, social workers or independent domestic violence advisors, to name but a few. Students of various disciplines reflected by these professions whould be recommended this book as essential reading.
Professional Social Work