Containing Trauma: Protecting a Vital Construct from Overuse and Isolation

Abstract

Trauma has become a central concern in therapeutic and mental health practice. Using Australia as a specific site, this paper examines complications that are emerging in relation to this status. Initially, two general concerns are detailed: first, that trauma presents a changing phenomenology across time and place, and, second, that expansive diagnostic practices may be leading to excessive case-finding. Three major risks are then identified: (i) in certain circumstances a diagnosis of trauma can be disabling; (ii) narrowly technical approaches to treatment can discount the ethical context of trauma, and (iii) the importance of building the client’s capacity for trust and connectedness can be mislaid if an overly individualistic vision of treatment and recovery is adopted. Unless an exclusive focus on ‘the individual’ is contested, and ethical and contextual dimensions are acknowledged, it is argued the above difficulties will tend to compromise how trauma is theorized and treated.