Seeing the Shadow Women: The Hidden Victims of Prostitution

A group of hidden victims of prostitution has been brought to light by Ingeborg Kraus, a trauma therapist in Germany, and Andrea Heinz, a woman with experience in the sex trade in Canada. Dignity has published four articles by these two writers in the last year. Their nascent body of work is uncovering important new information and perspectives on prostitution. Through their own experience and interviews with wives of sex buyers and women with sex trade experience they show us a more holistic view of the harm of prostitution. They write about the wives and families of men who are involved in prostitution. They describe how the shadow women suffer from the harm of prostitution. By broadening the analysis of the negative impact of prostitution on women and the community they conclude that legitimizing prostitution as sex work is a mistake that undermines our collective regard for women and their personal dignity and genuine sexual integrity.

COVID en Español: Reflections of a trauma therapist serving Spanish-speaking Latinx survivors of violence

In this reflexive essay I share my experiences as a trauma-focused psychotherapist serving Spanish-speaking Latinx survivors of violence in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Successes and challenges of working with this population during the pandemic are highlighted and connected to broader realities in the mental health field. Vicarious trauma is presented from the lens of a practitioner who shares a similar background to the population served.

Triumph Over Adversity

Like other chapters, the author takes the reader on a journey of a combat social worker beginning in his childhood as the son of a Vietnam veteran with severe PTSD. With the valuable lessons learned from his father’s mental health treatment journey with the help of the early 1980s Vet Centers. The author shares his life experiences and lessons gleaned from a career as a trauma therapist and finally a 16-year career as an Army social worker, including lessons from Iraq combat tour and the Army’s comprehensive soldier fitness program. Research-based theories, books, and interventions are described critical to healing PTSD and empowering the holistic well-being of today’s service members. The author, currently an Army lieutenant colonel behavioral health officer concludes with a call for reinforcements due to increasing attrition of combat social workers, and the corresponding traits and mindset required for this dynamic career opportunity in today’s military mental health community.

Trauma-Focused Presence

The purpose of this article is to capture and illuminate a trauma-focused presence in psychotherapy treatment. The goal is to highlight an integrative approach that centers on the trauma survivor’s battle with freedom and limitation. Both the expansive and the constrictive tendencies of many traumatized clients are exemplified, focusing on the dichotomous or polarized positions that clients present. Key factors of evidence-based therapeutic relationships that can guide therapist stances and engagement efforts are explored. This approach moves away from an overemphasis on and strict adherence to the medical model framework and toward a contextual standard grounded in a humanistic blanket and characterized by a person-centered and relationally driven therapeutic approach. The trauma therapist chiefly fosters engagement and makes space or pathways for an assortment of therapeutic interventions that are congruent with the client’s theory of change and take shape organically. Developing intrapersonal and interpersonal presence are primary focal points that correlate with the importance of personal and interactive processes in successful psychotherapy outcome research. Meaning making is at the core of a trauma-focused presence and takes place through client and therapist dialogue.

Decolonizing Trauma Therapy in Rwanda

Prevailing theories of trauma in the Western Psychological Sciences attend primarily to trauma's negative emotional, cognitive and behavioural consequences, which are interpreted as pathological and labelled 'posttraumatic stress disorder' (PTSD). Besides importing potentially culturally alien practices, technologies, and narratives, a significant problem with the Western medical model in the post-colonial, post-genocide context of Rwanda, is its narrow understanding of what constitutes 'traumatic'. Specifically, its focus on events fails to capture the complex traumatic experiences of Rwandans which, in addition to the genocide, include the long-term destruction of indigenous culture at the hands of European colonizers. Drawing on evidence from survivor testimonies and an interview with traditional Rwandan trauma therapist, Muganga Rutangarwamaboko, this chapter advocates an alternative approach to trauma therapy in Rwanda, reconciling posttraumatic growth theory and postcolonial theory with home-grown ideas about Rwandan identity, known as Ndi Umunyarwanda, or Rwandicité. Such an approach attempts to recognize and encourage existing stories of positive change among survivors while avoiding the imposition of diagnostic labels based on a discourse of individual psychopathology.