Coping With Trauma: Hope Through Understanding

Combining years of research, teaching, and experience treating trauma
survivors, Dr. Jon G. Allen offers compassionate and practical guidance to
understanding trauma and its effects on the self and relationships. Coping With
Trauma is based on more than a decade of Dr. Allen's experience conducting
educational groups for persons struggling with psychiatric disorders stemming
from trauma. Written for a general audience, this book does not require a
background in psychology. Readers will gain essential knowledge to embark on the
process of healing from the complex wounds of trauma, along with a guide to
current treatment approaches.

In this supportive and informative work,
readers will be introduced to and encouraged in the process of healing by an
author who is both witness and guide. This clearly written, insightful book not
only teaches clinicians about trauma but also, equally important, teaches
clinicians how to educate their patients about trauma.

Reshaped by recent
developments in attachment theory, including the importance of cumulative stress
over a lifetime, this compelling work retains the author's initial focus on
attachment as he looks at trauma from two perspectives. From the psychological
perspective, the author discusses the impact of trauma on emotion, memory, the
self, and relationships, incorporating research from neuroscience to argue that
trauma is a physical illness. From the psychiatric perspective, the author
discusses various trauma-related disorders and symptoms: depression,
posttraumatic stress disorder, and dissociative disorders, along with a range of
self-destructive behaviors to which trauma can make a
contribution.

Important updates include substantive and practical
information on Emotion and emotion regulation, prompted by extensive
contemporary research on emotion-which is becoming a science unto itself.
Illness, based on current developments in the neurobiological understanding of
trauma. Depression, a pervasive trauma-related problem that poses a number of
catch-22s for recovery. Various forms of self-destructiveness-substance abuse,
eating disorders, and deliberate self-harm-all construed as coping strategies
that backfire. Suicidal states and self-defeating aspects of personality
disorders.

The author addresses the challenges of healing by reviewing
strategies of emotion regulation as well as a wide range of sound treatment
approaches. He concludes with a new chapter on the foundation of all healing:
maintaining hope.

This exceptionally comprehensive overview of a wide
range of traumatic experiences, written in nontechnical language with extensive
references to both classic and contemporary theoretical, clinical, and research
literature, offers a uniquely useful guide for victims of trauma, their family
members, and mental health care professionals alike.