Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience

Treating traumatized patients famously takes its toll on the treating clinician, giving rise over time to a countertrauma in the psychoanalyst or therapist. Gartner has gathered a distinguished group of clinicians whose personal reflections do what clinicians do all too rarely; disclose their own traumatic material, and discuss how they have developed models for acknowledging, articulating and synthesizing the countertrauma that arises from long term exposure to patients’ trauma. The book also covers how patients’ resilience evokes counterresilience in the therapist, allowing the clinician to benefit from ongoing contact with patients who deal bravely with their own personal difficulties.