Dancing between Hope and Despair
Trauma, Attachment and the Therapeutic Relationship
1st Edition
Published on 16. September 2017
232 pages
978-1-137-44124-9 (ISBN)
Description
Why is hope so fundamental to our existence? Hope is increasingly being acknowledged as an important factor both for people's resilience and for positive therapeutic outcomes. In considering this and many other questions, this evocative textbook introduces the reader to the repeated shifting, or 'dance', between hope and despair that is so often encountered by practitioners working with profoundly traumatised individuals. This book brings a sharp focus to the ways in which therapeutic relationships can draw individuals out of the constant oscillation between light and dark. It provides an insightful and thoughtful discussion not just about despair itself, but about how to be with despair. Informed by the author's own years of experience in the field of psychotherapy, this engaging and stimulating book provides practical guidance on how students, trainees and practitioners can inspire fresh hope in deeply troubled clients.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN-13
978-1-137-44124-9 (9781137441249)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2016
Bloomsbury Academic
€36.37
Shipment within 10-20 days
Content
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introducing the Dance
- The endless rain story
- The characteristics of hope and of despair
- What fosters hope?
- What destroys hope?
- The language of hope
- Being with despair
- Notes
- 2 Desperately Seeking the 'Happy Ever After': Some Theoretical Perspectives on Hope
- Seeking 'happy ever afters'
- Theoretical perspectives on hope
- Notes
- 3 Hoping, Imagining and Dreaming: An Evolutionary Perspective
- The survival logic of chronic hopelessness: immobilisation as a defensive system
- The seeking system and man's evolutionary need to hope and to dream
- Notes
- 4 Our Need for Hope and its Roots in Childhood
- Hope during the stage of trust versus mistrust
- Imagination, play and hope
- When parents stifle hoping and dreaming
- Notes
- 5 The Impact of Trauma as a Hope Destroyer Across the Life-Cycle
- The legacy of trauma
- Trauma and epigenetic stages
- Notes
- 6 When Hoping Keeps People Alive: Non-Mentalised States and the Need for Illusions
- The importance of hoping: Mae's story
- On hoping and not hoping: some typical responses after trauma
- When hoping keeps people alive
- When it is adaptive not to hope
- Hope destroyed: despair and the wish to die
- Notes
- 7 Despair, Dissociation and Shifting Self-States
- Dissociation in the service of preserving hope
- The internal dance of structural dissociation
- The survival logic of attacking, blaming states of mind
- Idealised wishes, hopelessness, shame and blame
- Pippa: from 'ridiculous hope' to realistic self-care
- Megan: from shame and self-loathing to anger
- Notes
- 8 Systemic Perspectives: Our Responses to Getting Stuck in Cycles of Hope and Despair
- Conceptualising and making sense of our reactions
- Making sense of countertransference reactions
- The discourse of blame: 'the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem'
- Linking theory and practice: working with the 'incurables'
- Working with the hopelessness of persistent self-destructiveness
- The snakes and ladders phenomenon
- Conclusions
- Notes
- 9 Working with Hopelessness from a Relational Perspective
- Creating safety
- Being different
- Sitting with despair
- Alerting and enlivening
- Working with hopelessness in the moment: regulating arousal levels
- Notes
- 10 Finding New Perspectives
- Harnessing the exploration system
- Tolerating internal conflict and moving from single-mindedness to the freedom of multiple perspectives
- The need to grieve
- From illusory hopes and fantasies to creative imagination
- Notes
- 11 Moving into Hope: New Meanings and New Experiences
- The dimensions of hope
- Concluding thoughts
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
