Personalising Trauma Treatment

Dr Scott offers a unique and refreshing perspective on working with those affected by trauma, particularly when they don’t neatly fit into a PTSD ‘box’ but have nevertheless come to be defined by their experiences. Taking a critical eye to evidence-based practice, and at turns thought-provoking and light-hearted, he combines up-to-date theory and clinical pearls with a robust critique of the modern realities of service delivery. He presents the first practical guide to implementing event centrality theory into a personalised, restorative CBT therapy with idiosyncratic formulation at its heart. Full of rich clinical examples and dialogue that brings the reader into his therapy room, he takes you step-by-step through his clinical decision making and interventions. He demonstrates how to combine rigorous diagnostic practice with a humane, respectful and personalised therapeutic style, helping people rebuild, restore and redefine themselves outside of their traumatic experiences, and in so doing reclaim their future selves from their past. An immensely useful guide for working with traumatised patients, you will find ideas, metaphors, stories, techniques, materials, and resources that you will return to time and again. Highly recommended! -- Sharif El-Leithy, Principal Clinical Psychologist, Traumatic Stress Service

In Personalising Trauma Treatment: Reframing and Reimagining Dr Scott delivers an approach to treatment grounded in pragmatism and real-world functioning. After considering the pitfalls of poor assessment he guides the reader through the process of detailed and accurate diagnosis questioning whether treatments work for the supposed reasons they give. He then introduces a range of evidence-based techniques that allow the client’s sense of self identity to remain central to the therapy process. Dr Scott especially considers the role of IAPT and the limitations IAPT protocols impose on the effective care of clients which goes to the heart of treatment effectiveness and in doing so presents a rational for Restorative CBT in returning the client back to being themselves again. This book is a must for all IAPT & CBT therapists, counsellors and clinical psychologists involved in the care of individuals suffering with trauma. -- Sundeep Sembi, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist, Psychology Chambers Ltd

Motherhood, apple pie, … improving access to psychological therapies? Whereas IAPT satisfies an NHS England mental health policy aspiration, it fails traumatised individuals in its organisational objective. Improving Access too often denied by administrative barrier, simplistic assessment, and lengthy delay. Psychological Therapies too frequently limited off-the-shelf, performed inadequately and/or incompletely, and with markedly differing outcome objectives for individual and service. Michael Scott identifies the paradox, coolly critiques the evidence, and illustrates and emphasises the collaborative and crucial role of the creative, empathic, and restorative therapist in enabling the client’s natural resilience and preferences for today and tomorrow, without pathologizing normality, imposing supposed processing, and unconstrained by complacent diktat. -- Greg Wilkinson formerly: Editor, The British Journal of Psychiatry and Professor of Liaison Psychiatry, The University of Liverpool; currently: Consultant Psychiatrist, Liverpool University Dental Hospital and Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.