Trauma in the Creative and Embodied Therapies

This is an important text which documents embodied, enactive, creative methods to support people suffering complex trauma and explores the impact on the therapists providing the service. It brings together global experts from several different modalities which integrate theory with practice to illuminate the often pre-verbal, ‘un-worded’ stories of their clients. The book integrates trauma-informed research from several disciplines. It will make a significant contribution to colleagues engaged in trauma-related practice from both embodied creative psychotherapies and verbal therapies.

Professor Helen Payne, PhD, University of Hertfordshire, UK

This book offers bold, dynamic reflections of contemporary trauma work across a breadth of creative and embodied therapies. Socio-political and socio-cultural understandings are highlighted, and authors offer insights, skills development and nuances of approach. validation of those who have suffered trauma impact directly, and for those working therapeutically including wider social and health care settings are central, with compassion and integrity emerging from thought-provoking writing. I was drawn to engage phenomenologically, getting up to move my body to allow me to experience on multiple levels what I was reading.

Carmen Joanne Ablack (MSc), President of European Association for Body Psychotherapy. Honorary Fellow and Registrant of UK Council for Psychotherapy. Author, trainer and supervisor in Gestalt, Integrative and Body Psychotherapy

This is a book instilled with hard-earned practice wisdom. Sixteen authors from diverse creative and embodied therapies describe their practice with survivors of trauma. These able practitioner-scholars will take your breath away. They write with boundless creativity, informed by research, theory and their direct experience on the front line of trauma work. As a supervisor, I will recommend these chapters to my supervisees, to inspire and inform them. Prepare to be moved by descriptions of therapy using music, art, movement, play, imagination and story to help people find hope, strength, meaning and movement forward. These startling chapters represent a fresh and integrative approach to the healing of mind, body, spirit and relationships after the devastating impact of trauma.

Clark Baim, PhD (BPA, UKCP). Senior Trainer in Psychodrama Psychotherapy. Honorary President of the British Psychodrama Association

This international collection of writing on trauma and its treatment via creative and embodied therapies is a much-needed resource. With representation from many disciplines and well-known authors, it should serve as an authoritative source and inspiration for embodied psychotherapists and other practitioners for years to come. The coverage provided by the thirteen chapters includes not only a range of disciplines, approaches, and considerations such as resilience building, it even includes the impact of secondary traumatization and supervision of the therapist. This unprecedented volume offers a truly wide range of highly relevant material on understanding embodied treatment of trauma for students and seasoned clinicians alike.

Robyn Flaum Cruz, PhD, BC-DMT, Professor, Lesley University PhD Program in Expressive Therapies; Editor-in-Chief Emerita, The Arts in Psychotherapy and American Journal of Dance Therapy

This is an alive, informative and moving book. Encompassing development trauma, PTSD, and intergenerational trauma, it also attends to socio-economic and political trauma, for example, in the form of war and austerity. The focus extends way beyond treating trauma as an individual and often pathologised phenomenon. This book brings to life the vibrancy of the theory and practice of a wide range of creative and embodied modalities, through an array of international voices. I will return to this book again and again with great gratitude, in reflecting on my work with clients, supervisees, and trainees and on the trauma of my own incarnation.

Emma Palmer, Body psychotherapist, BACP-accredited counsellor, ecopsychologist, supervisor, trainer and author

Trauma in the Creative and Embodied Therapies is a landmark book that brings together a range of nonverbal therapeutic practices in the rapidly emerging field of working with trauma. At a time when we are increasingly recognising the extent of trauma in our society, the contributors offer sound body-based theory, research and clinical treatment for working with individuals and groups in a range of settings using dance and movement, art, play, and music therapies, psychodrama, body psychotherapy, and playback theatre. Essential reading for therapists, healthcare practitioners and anyone interested in understanding how to transform lives of those affected by trauma.

Ewa Robertson, UKCP psychotherapist, co-founder ReVision Psychotherapy Training Centre; author of Roots and Seeds and The Third Body in Transformation in Troubled Times

This collection offers a profound challenge to the efficacy of treating trauma with talking therapy alone. The writing is uniformly compassionate and engaging, embodying the affirming intention at the heart of trauma therapy. Whereas many texts on therapy and theory can feel stuffy and heady, I found myself frequently moved, stimulated and inspired by the contributions. In fact, I would invite readers to read this book with their bodies, allowing what’s shared to be experienced on the embodied level, so its full richness can be absorbed.

Paul Christelis, psychotherapist, meditation teacher, author

This is an important text which documents embodied, enactive, creative methods to support people suffering complex trauma and explores the impact on the therapists providing the service. It brings together global experts from several different modalities which integrate theory with practice to illuminate the often pre-verbal, ‘un-worded’ stories of their clients. The book integrates trauma-informed research from several disciplines. It will make a significant contribution to colleagues engaged in trauma-related practice from both embodied creative psychotherapies and verbal therapies.

Professor Helen Payne, PhD, University of Hertfordshire, UK

This book offers bold, dynamic reflections of contemporary trauma work across a breadth of creative and embodied therapies. Socio-political and socio-cultural understandings are highlighted, and authors offer insights, skills development and nuances of approach. validation of those who have suffered trauma impact directly, and for those working therapeutically including wider social and health care settings are central, with compassion and integrity emerging from thought-provoking writing. I was drawn to engage phenomenologically, getting up to move my body to allow me to experience on multiple levels what I was reading.

Carmen Joanne Ablack (MSc), President of European Association for Body Psychotherapy. Honorary Fellow and Registrant of UK Council for Psychotherapy. Author, trainer and supervisor in Gestalt, Integrative and Body Psychotherapy

This is a book instilled with hard-earned practice wisdom. Sixteen authors from diverse creative and embodied therapies describe their practice with survivors of trauma. These able practitioner-scholars will take your breath away. They write with boundless creativity, informed by research, theory and their direct experience on the front line of trauma work. As a supervisor, I will recommend these chapters to my supervisees, to inspire and inform them. Prepare to be moved by descriptions of therapy using music, art, movement, play, imagination and story to help people find hope, strength, meaning and movement forward. These startling chapters represent a fresh and integrative approach to the healing of mind, body, spirit and relationships after the devastating impact of trauma.

Clark Baim, PhD (BPA, UKCP). Senior Trainer in Psychodrama Psychotherapy. Honorary President of the British Psychodrama Association

This international collection of writing on trauma and its treatment via creative and embodied therapies is a much-needed resource. With representation from many disciplines and well-known authors, it should serve as an authoritative source and inspiration for embodied psychotherapists and other practitioners for years to come. The coverage provided by the thirteen chapters includes not only a range of disciplines, approaches, and considerations such as resilience building, it even includes the impact of secondary traumatization and supervision of the therapist. This unprecedented volume offers a truly wide range of highly relevant material on understanding embodied treatment of trauma for students and seasoned clinicians alike.

Robyn Flaum Cruz, PhD, BC-DMT, Professor, Lesley University PhD Program in Expressive Therapies; Editor-in-Chief Emerita, The Arts in Psychotherapy and American Journal of Dance Therapy

This is an alive, informative and moving book. Encompassing development trauma, PTSD, and intergenerational trauma, it also attends to socio-economic and political trauma, for example, in the form of war and austerity. The focus extends way beyond treating trauma as an individual and often pathologised phenomenon. This book brings to life the vibrancy of the theory and practice of a wide range of creative and embodied modalities, through an array of international voices. I will return to this book again and again with great gratitude, in reflecting on my work with clients, supervisees, and trainees and on the trauma of my own incarnation.

Emma Palmer, Body psychotherapist, BACP-accredited counsellor, ecopsychologist, supervisor, trainer and author

Trauma in the Creative and Embodied Therapies is a landmark book that brings together a range of nonverbal therapeutic practices in the rapidly emerging field of working with trauma. At a time when we are increasingly recognising the extent of trauma in our society, the contributors offer sound body-based theory, research and clinical treatment for working with individuals and groups in a range of settings using dance and movement, art, play, and music therapies, psychodrama, body psychotherapy, and playback theatre. Essential reading for therapists, healthcare practitioners and anyone interested in understanding how to transform lives of those affected by trauma.

Ewa Robertson, UKCP psychotherapist, co-founder ReVision Psychotherapy Training Centre; author of Roots and Seeds and The Third Body in Transformation in Troubled Times

This collection offers a profound challenge to the efficacy of treating trauma with talking therapy alone. The writing is uniformly compassionate and engaging, embodying the affirming intention at the heart of trauma therapy. Whereas many texts on therapy and theory can feel stuffy and heady, I found myself frequently moved, stimulated and inspired by the contributions. In fact, I would invite readers to read this book with their bodies, allowing what’s shared to be experienced on the embodied level, so its full richness can be absorbed.

Paul Christelis, psychotherapist, meditation teacher, author