Contextual Therapy for Survivors of Prolonged Child Abuse
Dr. Steven N. Gold, Psychologist, is a Professor of Psychology at the Center for Psychological Studies and Founder and Director of the Trauma Resolution Integration Program (TRIP) at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He has published many articles on abuse, trauma, dissociation, and sexual compulsivity and has made numerous presentations on these topics at national and international professional conferences.
Dr. Gold is the author of Not Trauma Alone: Therapy for Child Abuse Survivors in Family and Social Context. He is co-editor with Jon Elhai, Ph.D. of the Journal of Trauma Practice and guest editor of a special issue on the treatment of trauma-related disorders in the Journal of Psychotherapy. He also co-edited Trauma Practice in the Wake of September 11, 2001 with Jan Faust, Ph.D. Dr. Gold has served as President of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, American Psychological Association (APA) Division of Hypnosis Liaison to APA’s Trauma Interest Group and advisory board member to the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.
This conference will provide an overview of an alternative conceptual model as well as a set of intervention strategies for treating abuse survivors: Contextual Therapy. This model proposes that many survivors of prolonged child abuse grow up in circumstances that fail to provide them with the basic capacities needed for effective daily living. Since they often lack sufficient resources to adequately cope with daily stressors, therapeutic interventions that require survivors to confront the extraordinary stress of trauma are likely to be overwhelming, resulting in heightened levels of distress and deterioration in functioning rather than improvement. Contextual Therapy places primary emphasis on helping abuse survivors develop the resources needed for adaptive daily living that were not adequately transmitted to them in their childhood. Trauma-focused treatment strategies are retained and integrated into this framework, but do not constitute the main focus of treatment.
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