Shelter from the Storm: Processing the Traumatic Memories of DID/DDNOS Patients with The Fractionated Abreaction Technique

How can we help our patients process their traumatic memories without their becoming retraumatized and overwhelmed severely all over again? Shelter from the Storm explores how therapists can confront this complex challenge. No one can completely eliminate the pain of those who have suffered mistreatment, but Shelter from the Storm proposes ways to reduce and contain the anguish inherent in trauma work. Helping those who suffer Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder can prove a challenging task. Painful, terrifying, and mortifying memories rarely yield their grips on our patients' minds and present-day lives without the help of strenuous therapeutic interventions. It may prove difficult or impossible to free the presents and the futures of those who have suffered unwanted misfortunes in their pasts without helping them abreact some or much of their overwhelming experiences. But therapeutic approaches to traumas once powerful enough to cause mental disorders may themselves prove threatening and destabilizing to those who are already vulnerable and distressed. Preventing trauma treatment from retraumatizing trauma survivors and working to minimize the discomfort they suffer during their psychotherapies are the driving forces behind Shelter from the Storm. Dr. Richard Kluft has over 40 years of experience treating traumatized and dissociative patients. He has brought over 200 Dissociative Identity Disorder patients to integration. His therapeutic innovations have received numerous awards and honors here and abroad. Here he brings together elements from psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychotherapy, hypnosis, behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, and EMDR in support of his work with the traumatized. He presents his approaches through the lens of The Fractionated Abreaction Technique. His exploration of this approach is conversational and unconventional. Shelter from the Storm is not a traditional textbook. Kluft allows the Fractionated Abreaction Technique to speak for itself through the voice of its personification, The FAT Man. Kluft and The FAT Man engage the reader directly. Throughout their humorous and often irreverent dialogs they offer a compassionate and empathic perspective on how to go about working effectively with the most grim, tragic, terrifying, and soul-shattering aspects of man's inhumanity to man.