Finding Life Beyond Trauma: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Heal from Post-Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Related Problems by Victoria M. Follette, Jacqueline Pistorello, Steven C. Hayes (Foreword by)

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Synopsis

Because it views experiential avoidance as a central problem in a range of psychological problems, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is especially well suited to the treatment of trauma-related problems, which often present avoidance as a symptom. This is the first book to adapt ACT principles in a self-care approach readers can use to help overcome the lingering effects of traumatic events.

The book helps readers learn to accept the unpleasant feelings they associate with past experiences. It also shows them why strategies that have them "control" these negative feelings can have severe long-term consequences, such as substance abuse and chronic anxiety-especially when the attempts at control result in the avoidance of normal activities and situations. Instead of control, the book encourages readers to develop psychological flexibility and a willingness to embrace "clean" painful experience that is a necessary and unavoidable part of living. By committing to live in ways that really matter to them despite painful experiences, readers move beyond problems with past trauma. In the end, they will discover that life after trauma was very much worth the bumps and scrapes they receive on the way to living it.

Biography

Victoria M. Follette, Ph.D., is a clinical scientist with a special interest in the etiology and treatment of trauma-related problems. She is professor of psychology and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. She was named Distinguished Alumna by the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis, Tennessee, where she received her doctoral degree. Follette's clinical work is focused on survivors of interpersonal violence, and she examines the use of acceptance-based behavioral therapies in the treatment of this population.

Jacqueline Pistorello, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at University of Nevada, Reno and completed her internship at the Brown University Consortium. She specializes in two behavioral approaches, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and she has pioneered the conduct of these approaches to college counseling center settings. She currently has a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to adapt DBT to college students and is writing another grant to implement ACT in the prevention of mental health problems among college students. In collaboration with Victoria Follette, she has been applying ACT and ACT-informed approaches to the treatment of trauma survivors, particularly child sexual abuse survivors, since 1989.