Taking a history of childhood trauma in psychotherapy : achieving an optimal approach

The authors examine the process of taking an initial history of childhood abuse and trauma in psychodynamic psychotherapy. In exploring the advantages, complexities, and potential complications of this practice, they hope to heighten the sensitivities of clinicians taking trauma histories. Emphasis on the need to be active in eliciting important historical material is balanced with discussion of concepts that can help therapists avoid interpersonal dynamics that reenact and perpetuate the traumas the therapy seeks to treat. Ensuring optimal psychotherapeutic treatment for patients who have experienced childhood trauma requires attention to the following concepts: a safe holding environment, destabilization, compliance, the repetition compulsion, and projective identification.