Routledge The Social Work and Sexual Trauma Casebook: Phenomenological Perspectives

This volume offers a collection of ten case studies from clinical social workers who work in the field of sexual trauma, with the objective of challenging and informing social work practice with survivors and perpetrators of sexual trauma. These steps are meant to help the process of treatment by breaking down the experience of trauma to a set of steps and interventions aimed at resolving traumatic symptoms within a given time frame. Our text seeks to challenge the tendency towards reductionism inherent in the dominant social paradigm by encouraging the development of a phenomenological and interdisciplinary approach to understanding sexual trauma. In doing so, the examples of interventions presented in each case study reflect practice methods that honor the complexity of the human experience of sexual trauma, suffering, and recovery. Review "The authors of this casebook have done an extraordinary job interweaving clinical theories―especially trauma theory―with social theories and practice issues. They carefully mine the relationship between social work practitioner and client: the working alliance, transference and countertransference. Research on practice is artfully applied to rich, evocative, and detailed clinical cases. Students are further helped in conceptualizing these cases using study guides and questions that the authors provide at the end of each chapter."Joan Berzoff, professor emerita, Smith College School for Social Work "It is the ultimate paradox: the damage inflicted by disruptive relationships requires relationship to heal. In no case is this more challenging than when the damage is sexual in nature. The Social Work and Sexual Trauma Casebook boldly asserts that work with those who have experienced sexual trauma requires a willingness to enter the world of the ‘other’ in deep and unpredictable ways in order to facilitate healing. If you’re looking for easy answers, you won’t find them here. Kudos to the authors for resisting reductionism and inviting us all to embrace our own messy humanity."Darla Spence Coffey, PhD, MSW, president and chief executive officer, Council on Social Work Education About the Author Miriam Jaffe, MSW, PhD, is the director of the Rutgers University Doctorate in Social Work Writing Program. She specializes in issues of autobiography, life-writing, and the case study method. Her publications, including the textbook Social Work and K-12 Schools, focus on pedagogies that de-silo academic disciplines. She practices with clients ages 7-80 through the lens of attachment theory. Jerry Floersch, LCSW, PhD, is an associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Social Work and the authors of Meds, Money, and Manners: The Case Management of Severe Mental Illness and co-author of Qualitative Methods for Practice Research. His clinical practice focuses upon adolescents and adults. Jeffrey Longhofer, LCSW, PhD, is an associate professor of social work at Rutgers University and the author of A-Z of Psychodynamic Practice and co-author of On Being and Having a Case Manager. His clinical practice focuses on children, adolescents, and adults. Megan Conti, LCSW, DSW, is a specialist in sexual trauma. She practices through a psychodynamic, feminist lens with clients ages 3-75 in both community-based mental health agencies and in private practice. Her publications include The Case Study of Jacob: Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Limitations of the Holding Environment.