Post-Traumatic Success : Positive Psychology and Solution-Focused Strategies to Help Clients

Resiliency-focused approaches to managing trauma.

This is a book to help clients to transform what happened to them to make them better instead of bitter.

The first book on trauma to combine the theory and practice of positive psychology and solution-focused brief therapy with traditional approaches, this book veers away from a focus on pathology (what is wrong with clients and how to repair the worst) to a focus on what is right with them (and how to create the best)―that is, from post traumatic stress to post traumatic success.

The three R’s of post traumatic success are: Recovery, Resilience and enRichment (post traumatic growth) - concepts depicted by the bamboo plant on the book’s cover. Trauma professionals will learn what it takes to help more survivors benefit more substantively from therapy and how to support their clients in developing longer-term resilience. By practicing the skills in this book, they can increase their clients’ self-efficacy and self-esteem, and make psychotherapy shorter in time, more cost effective and more lighthearted for their clients and themselves.

Written for all professionals and students working with trauma survivors (both adults and children) and their families and friends, it equips readers with practical direction for adopting a more positive approach and expanding their range of available techniques. Over a hundred exercises, thirty-three cases, and forty stories are presented to illustrate and help incorporate this new approach into practice.

It’s about time to turn the tide on treating trauma by shifting the focus from reducing distress and merely surviving to building success and positively thriving.

Fredrike Bannink, MDR, is a clinical psychologist trained in solution-focused coaching and solution-focused mediation. She is the author of many publications on solution-focused therapy, solution-focused interviewing, and mediation, and a trainer for mental health team of Doctors Without Borders. She is based in the Netherlands.