debor016

I have been reading Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Bundle: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (Knopf; 1 edition, May, 2010). I have seen the Swedish movies based on the first two books. This marvelous series features Lizbeth Selander. Lizbeth has been systematically badly abused and has experienced profound trauma. We root for her so strongly that in the theater when I saw the first movie, the entire audience burst into applause when she achieved revenge against one of her abusers. Yet Lizbeth is strange, difficult, hostile and quirky, much as many of our clients are. In our sympathetic engagement with Lizbeth, we can learn a lot about trauma. How has Lizbeth been shaped by her experiences? • She is strong, resourceful, and has many skills and strengths. • She is fiercely independent. She refuses to take help from any one. Even when she is in the hospital she hates to call the nurse because ...

"I’ve been a foster parent for sixteen years" said Michelle. "And this is the first time anyone has ever asked about how this job affects me." The last session in my six module training for foster parents was entirely focused on them. How does this very difficult work affect them? We started with the definition of vicarious traumatization (VT) from Risking Connection© (Sidran Foundation). It is: "VT refers to the negative changes in the helper as a result of empathically engaging with and feeling, or being, responsible for traumatized clients." We can see these affects physically, emotionally, in our thoughts, in our sense of safety, in our relationships, our spirituality, and our sense of hope. We did the Silent Witness exercise from Risking Connection© training. In this exercise, participants write anonymously on a piece of paper three ways that their job affects them in negative ways. On the back of the page they write three ways the job has affected th...