Workshop 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Meaning Therapy with Survivors of Trauma (#248)

Susan L. Miller 1
  1. The Melbourne Counselling & Psychology Centre, Melbourne, VICTORIA, Australia

Exposure to a traumatic event shatters meaning and hope. Assumptions of safety, self, world and other are challenged. In this workshop we will consider how meaning- centred therapies, such as solution-focused narrative therapy, inspire hopeful ways of working with trauma.  These therapies represent a departure from diagnosis and pathology toward a focus on agency, resilience and client-led vision. There is an optimistic shift from the notion of victim to survivor.  People are viewed as resourceful rather than damaged, and, as more likely to act on their strengths and create possibilities for change when affirmed to do so.  The workshop will illustrate case material from the presenter’s clinical practice across a range of trauma populations, such as: family members of homicide victims, survivors of crime, traumatic loss and terrorist attack.  We will experientially explore key therapy techniques based on these ideas including: narrative retelling of survival histories, double listening, mapping ‘the absent but implicit’, externalising, therapeutic writing, the use of metaphor and client-led imagery, compassionate awareness and the reconstruction of meaning.  The focus will be take away ideas and tools for your practice.

  • Select one of the following conference tracks which best describes your submission area: Positive Clinical Applications and Mental Health