EAPN Trauma Conference

East Anglian Psychotherapy Network's conference: Understanding and Treating Trauma – Current Psychotherapeutic Approaches was a fascinating day last month. It was great to see different approaches working together and sharing ideas in a supportive environment. I particularly enjoyed Joanne Stubley's presentation on the Tavistock model where trauma is treated in many ways, but within a psychoanalytic frame. She quoted Laub who wrote that trauma therapy, 'Involves the communication of “testimony” to a witness willing “to be totally present to the survivor, and to receive as well as experience what he / she wants to transmit”'. The importance of narrative and containing reception was emphasised throughout the day. Of course, there are problems here, when traumatic experiences are so hard to symbolise. Often trauma become enacted in the therapeutic relationship with the therapist standing in as perpetrator, victim, bystander and witness at different times. this is challenging work, but of enormous importance.