Therapy with traumatised clients can be fraught with problems and therapists working with these clients seek greater understanding of the specific problems they encounter. Trauma Therapy and Clinical Practice weaves together neuroscience research and the experience of trauma, taking a fresh look at how original Gestalt theory informs our current understanding of trauma therapy. The book: Places trauma and trauma therapy in a relational field model Includes material on change processes, triggers, dissociation, shame, enactment and resources Describes clearly the neurobiology of trauma and the role of the body in maintaining trauma reactions and in the recovery process Offers experiments for deepening the therapist's embodied presence Provides numerous clinical examples and an extended case study Miriam Taylor offers readers a theoretical basis for interventions and shows how simple Gestalt concepts can be applied in trauma therapy. By creating the conditions in which awareness, choice and vitality can grow, contemporary relational Gestalt is shown to be exceptionally well suited for trauma clients. The book is presented in three parts covering theory, the phenomenology of trauma and the therapeutic relationship. Including a glossary for readers unfamiliar with Gestalt therapy, case studies and reflection points, this book is a thoughtful and coherent guide for trainees and practitioners in counselling and therapy. "Miriam Taylor has done a simply tremendous job in articulating an expanded Gestalt approach to trauma treatment that is informed by, and integrated with, modern neurobiological approaches to trauma ... This book should be read by everyone treating trauma and I expect it to become a foundational text in our field." James Kepner, Gestalt therapist and international trainer in Gestalt Body Process Psychotherapy "Taylor's book is a theoretically and clinically sophisticated approach to working with trauma from a phenomenological vantage point. Her book hadan immediate effect on my work." Lynne Jacobs, co-founder, Pacific Gestalt Institute, USA "Destined to become a classic in Gestalt therapy literature. Well-written, insightful, compassionate, and practical, it will assist many a therapist." Malcolm Parlett, Visiting Professor of Gestalt Psychotherapy, University of Derby, UK (now retired) "I am profoundly grateful to Miriam Taylor for writing this book. I just wish that she could have written it before 2002 when I began my own training in Gestalt psychotherapy. There is a section at the beginning called ‘Praise for this book’ which includes very positive prepublication comments from Malcolm Parlett, James Kepner, and Lynne Jacobs. Now that I have read the book for myself, I find myself in agreement with their comments and want to add my own round of applause ... I consider that Taylor has made a major contribution to our field in taking this enterprise forward." British Gestalt Journal2014, Vol. 23, No. 2, 47–58 "Taylor’s remarkable contribution is a reminder that Gestalt Therapy Theory is alive and kicking and demonstrating how Gestalt can and should become the therapy of choice for trauma workers." Review published in Self and Society

This book weaves together the experience of trauma, neuroscience and Gestalt theory and applies these to clients.

"A courageous book for courageous therapists. This book will become a treasured companion in the search for a radically ethical practice." Donna Orange, Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, USA "[In Taylor’s hands] Trauma, a problem that in a post-pandemic world affects everyone, patients and therapists alike, becomes an opportunity to become better human beings, more able to connect with each other." Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, Psy.D., Istituto di Gestalt HCC, Italy “A thought-provoking and scholarly study illustrated with stories, real-life examples and invitations to practices.” Kim S Golding, CBE, Clinical Psychologist and Author, UK How can therapists work with individuals affected by trauma to develop therapeutic relationships? This book explores how trauma is embedded in our fragmented world; the relational space in the therapy session; and finally, the Gestalt premise that the complex and interconnected network of relationships is greater than the sum of its parts. Moving beyond individualism, the book examines how trauma is an outcome of profound disconnection and how healing requires reconnection in equally multiple layers. Deepening Trauma Practice: •Takes a broad overview of collective and intergenerational trauma •Examines how echoes of collective trauma shape the work in the consulting room •Redefines what we understand as relational therapy •Considers the self-hood of the therapist, and takes a fresh look at the ethics of self-care as a key intervention •Argues for an ecological perspective on healing Using clinical vignettes and reflection points alongside theoretical discussion, the major themes of the book are woven together through the metaphor of the Trickster. As a companion volume to Miriam Taylor’s first book Trauma Therapy and Clinical Practice, this book is an invaluable and unique contribution for therapists and those working in the field of trauma. Miriam Taylor is a British Gestalt psychotherapist, supervisor and international trainer. With nearly 30 years’ experience of working with trauma, her work is supported by her embodied relationship with the natural world. She is on the Leadership Team of Relational Change in the UK.

Sylvia Crocker's A Well-Lived Life is a work of a daring and creative thinker, offering a bold reconceptualization of Gestalt therapy that extends all the way from its philosophical foundation to the nuances of its clinical application. In prose that is clear as a bell, Crocker fully exposes the depth and power of Gestalt therapy's field theoretical model, deftly moving from individual to larger systems work and back again, and capturing the full range of human psychological phenomena as she goes. From the acquisition and maintenance of simple behavioral habits, to the construction of personal narrative and myth, Crocker's Gestalt therapy model is equally at home and applicable. Her vision of Gestalt therapy is at the same time startingly unique and comfortably familiar. She is firmly rooted in Gestalt Therapy's 'phenomenological behaviorism, " but at the same time offers us a model for assessing and working with self functions which is remarkably creative, and represents an important new contribution to the field. And throughout the text, interpolated between her provocative theoretical formulations, we encounter Crocker the clinician - moving straight ahead, getting right at the issue, making sense, and all the while, concretely instructive regarding the nature of the work. This is a book that will make a difference, challenging the way we think about the practice, the craft of psychotherapy.

Edward W.L. Smith, Ph.D. is a "therapist's therapist" - a teacher, trainer, mentor and author - whose writings from 1972 - 2009, capture the essence of Gestalt therapy's contribution to psychotherapeutic practice - the embodied patient. From Freud and Reich, to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, to Perls and Polster - projection and retroflection, contact boundary disturbances, awe and terror in insight and expression, the meaning of the person of the therapist, and working with the client's breathing and posture - the essays and articles in this book incorporate Gestalt theory, applications, history and philosophical roots, yet they never leave the consulting room. Students, trainees and seasoned therapists alike will find themselves stimulated and energized in their work with clients. After earning a B.A. degree in psychology from Drake University, and an M.S. in experimental psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Kentucky, Edward W. L. Smith taught at Georgia State University and then pursued an18-year full-time independent practice of psychotherapy in Atlanta. Returning to academia, he was the founding Director of Clinical Training for the Psy.D. program at Georgia Southern University, where he is now professor emeritus. Edward is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Clinical Psychology, and the Georgia Psychological Association. He has been an international workshop leader for nearly 40 years. He holds the certificate of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and was an early member of the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology. His books include The Growing Edge of Gestalt Therapy (Ed.), The Body in Psychotherapy, Sexual Aliveness: A Reichian Gestalt Perspective, Not Just Pumping Iron: On the Psychology of Lifting Weights, Gestalt Voices (Ed.), Touch in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice (Co-ed. with Pauline Clance & Suzanne Imes), and The Person of the Therapist. Edward pursues jazz with a tenor saxophone as an erotic balance to his logos-heavy professional writing. The poetry Muses sometimes beckon him, as well.

This acclaimed work, first published in 1985, presents in full detail, the most effective aspects of bioenergetics, Gestalt therapy, psychomotor therapy, Reichian orgonomy, and many others, are fully detailed, along with a wealth of practical therapeutic techniques. This book is divided into four parts: the historical and theoretical perspective; the body as the locus of personality assessment; the body as the locus of psychotherapeutic intervention; and personal and ethical considerations.