Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence


Book Description

This book is primarily for psychotherapists, but is also for professionals such as lawyers, judges, doctors, and the clergy, and for victims. Different perspectives describe worlds of sadistic violence, revealing how human beings are deliberately and persistently broken. It explores how victims are used and abused in the context of pornography, prostitution, and snuff videos; how they are deprived of their rights through mind control: degraded to nothing more than objects, abused at the push of a button according to the desires of the tormentors. Claims by the "false memory" movement aid the tormentors, and this is reflected in the language these groups use. With an explanation of the diverse structures of dissociation, ranging from dissociation as the reaction of an organism, through conditioning, all the way to programming, the author develops a structural model for treating victims of extreme violence and mind control.




Sadism


Book Description

Sadism: Psychoanalytic Developmental Perspectives is founded on the premise that paying close attention to what is happening in our internal world can help us understand the rise of sadism in the world of popular culture. Voyeuristic sadism as a form of entertainment appears to be on the rise, an increase corresponding with an upsurge in public appetite for sadomasochism as a recreational activity. This book acts as a forum in which psychotherapists present psychoanalytic perspectives on the phenomenon of sadomasochism at different stages of the human lifecycle: in childhood, adolescence, adulthood and in later life, and consider its developmental roots. Over the last half-century, through books, movies, computerized video games and drama, the stories we are being sold as representing aspects of contemporary culture market two commodities: sadism and victory. How might we understand this, and can psychoanalysis help us make meaning of this aspect of human relating?




The Abused and the Abuser


Book Description

Severe abuse often occurs in settings where the grouping, whether based around a family or a community organisation or institution, outwardly appears to be very respectable. The nature of attachment dynamics allied with threat, discrediting, the manipulation of the victim's dissociative defences, long-term conditioning and the endless invoking of shame mean that sexual, physical and emotional abuse may, in some instances, be essentially unending. Even when separation from the long-term abuser is attempted, it may initially be extremely difficult to achieve, and there are some individuals who never achieve this parting. Even when the abuser is dead, the intrapsychic nature of the enduring attachment experienced by their victim remains complicated and difficult to resolve. This volume includes multiple perspectives from highly experienced clinicians, researchers and writers on the nature of the relationship between the abused and their abuser(s). No less than five of this international grouping of authors have been president of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, the world's oldest international trauma society. This book, which opens with a highly original clinical paper on 'weaponized sex' by Richard Kluft, one of the foremost pioneers of the modern dissociative disorders field, concludes with a gripping historical perspective written by Jeffrey Masson as he reengages with issues that first brought him to worldwide prominence in the 1980s. Between these two pieces, the contributors, all highly acclaimed for their clinical, theoretical or research work, present original, cutting edge work on this complex subject. This book was originally published as a double special issue of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation.




Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence


Book Description

"This book is primarily for psychotherapists, but is also for professionals such as lawyers, judges, doctors, and the clergy, and for victims. Different perspectives describe worlds of sadistic violence, revealing how human beings are deliberately and persistently broken. It explores how victims are used and abused in the context of pornography, prostitution, and snuff videos; how they are deprived of their rights through mind control: degraded to nothing more than objects, abused at the push of a button according to the desires of the tormentors. Claims by the "false memory" movement aid the tormentors, and this is reflected in the language these groups use. With an explanation of the diverse structures of dissociation, ranging from dissociation as the reaction of an organism, through conditioning, all the way to programming, the author develops a structural model for treating victims of extreme violence and mind control."--Provided by publisher.




Bearing Witness


Book Description

This book discusses the kind of mental processing that can free victims from their unspeakable trauma, a trauma that has no framework in time or words with which to express it. It discusses the traumatic scenes that are extreme expressions of historic and political conditions.




Handbook of Dissociation


Book Description

Within the last decade there has been a tremendous explosion in the clinical, theoretical, and empirical literature related to the study of dissociation. Not since the work done at the tum of the century by Pierre Janet, Morton Prince, William James, and others have the psychological and medical communities shown this great an interest in describing and understanding dissociative phenomena. This volume is the result of this significant expansion. Presently, interest in the scientific and clinical progress in the field of dissociation is indicated by the following: 1. The explosion of conferences, workshops, and seminars devoted to disso ciative disorders treatment and research. 2. The emergence of NIMH-supported investigations that focus on dissociation. 3. The burgeoning literature on dissociation. According to a 1992 biblio graphic analysis of the field by Goettman et al. (1992), 72% of all writings on the topic have appeared in the past decade, with about 1000 published papers scattered across diverse disciplines and journals. 4. Current interest in dissociation as reflected in the appearance of major articles and special issues in respected psychology and psychiatry journals. 5. The initiation of a journal entitled Dissociation (Richard Kluft, MD, Editor) devoted to the area.




The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology


Book Description

The exponential growth of clinical psychology since the late 1960s can be measured in part by the extensive-perhaps exhaustive-literature on the subject. This proliferation of writing has continued into the new century, and the field has come to be defined as much by its many topics as its many voices.The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology synthesizes these decades of literature in one extraordinary volume. Comprising chapters from the foremost scholars in clinical psychology, the handbook provides even and authoritative coverage of the research, practice, and policy factors that combine to form today's clinical psychology landscape.In addition to core sections on topics such as training, assessment, diagnosis, and intervention, the handbook includes valuable chapters devoted to new and emerging issues in the clinical field, including heath care reforms, cultural factors, and technological innovations and challenges. Each chapter offers a review of the most pertinent literature, outlining current issues and identifying possibilities for future research.Featuring two chapters by Editor David H. Barlow -- one on changes during his own 40-year odyssey in the field, the other projecting ten themes for the future of clinical psychology -- The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology is a landmark publication that is sure to serve as the field's benchmark reference publication for years to come. It is an essential resource for students, clinicians, and researchers across the ever-growing clinical psychology community.




Traumatic Experiences of Normal Development


Book Description

Traditionally, trauma has been defined as negatively impacting external events, with resulting damage. This book puts forth an entirely different thesis: trauma is universal, occurring under even the best of circumstances and unavoidably sculpting the very building blocks of character structure. In Traumatic Experiences of Normal Development, Dr. Carl Shubs depathologizes the experience of trauma by presenting a listening perspective which helps recognize the presence and effects of traumatic experiences of normal development (TEND) by using a reconstruction of object relations theory. This outlook redefines trauma as the breach in intrapsychic organization of Self, Affect, and Other (SAO), the three components of object relations units, which combine to form intricate and changeable constellations that are no less than the total experience of living in any given moment. Bridging the gap between the trauma and analytic communities, as well as integrating intrapsychic and relational frameworks, the SAO/ TEND perspective provides a trauma-based band of attunement for attending to all relational encounters including those occurring in therapy. Though targeted to mental health professionals, this book will help enable therapists and sophisticated lay readers alike to recognize the impact of relational encounters, providing new tools to understand the traumas we have experienced and to minimize the hold they have on us.




Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder


Book Description

Building on the comprehensive theoretical model of dissociation elegantly developed in The Dissociative Mind, Elizabeth Howell makes another invaluable contribution to the clinical understanding of dissociative states with Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder. Howell, working within the realm of relational psychoanalysis, explicates a multifaceted approach to the treatment of this fascinating yet often misunderstood condition, which involves the partitioning of the personality into part-selves that remain unaware of one another, usually the result of severely traumatic experiences. Howell begins with an explication of dissociation theory and research that includes the dynamic unconscious, trauma theory, attachment, and neuroscience. She then discusses the identification and diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) before moving on to outline a phase-oriented treatment plan, which includes facilitating a multileveled co-constructed therapeutic relationship, emphasizing the multiplicity of transferences, countertransferences, and kinds of potential enactments. She then expands the treatment possibilities to include dreamwork, before moving on to discuss the risks involved in the treatment of DID and how to mitigate them. All concepts and technical approaches are permeated with rich clinical examples.




Developmental Psychopathology, Theory and Method


Book Description

The seminal reference for the latest research in developmental psychopathology Developmental Psychopathology is a four-volume compendium of the most complete and current research on every aspect of the field. Volume One: Theory and Method focuses on the theoretical and empirical work that has contributed to dramatic advancements in understanding of child and adult development, including findings in the areas of genetics and neurobiology, as well as social and contextual factors. Now in its third edition, this comprehensive reference has been fully updated to reflect the current state of the field and its increasingly multilevel and interdisciplinary nature and the increasing importance of translational research. Contributions from expert researchers and clinicians provide insight into how multiple levels of analysis may influence individual differences, the continuity or discontinuity of patterns, and the pathways by which the same developmental outcomes may be achieved. Advances in developmental psychopathology have burgeoned since the 2006 publication of the second edition ten years ago, and keeping up on the latest findings in multiple avenues of investigation can be burdensome to the busy professional and researcher from psychology and related fields. This reference solves the problem by collecting the best of the best, as edited by Dante Cicchetti, a recognized leader in the field, into one place, with a logical organization designed for easy reference. Get up to date on the latest research from the field Explore new models, emerging theory, and innovative approaches Learn new technical analysis and research design methods Understand the impact of life stage on mental health The complexity of a field as diverse as developmental psychopathology deepens with each emerging theory and new area of study, as made obvious by the exciting findings coming out of institutions and clinics around the world. Developmental Psychopathology Volume One: Theory and Method brings these findings together into a cohesive, broad-reaching reference.