Trauma and Survival: Post-Traumatic and Dissociative Disorders in Women
by Elizabeth A. Waites
Category: Abused women

In a perceptive and penetrating opening chapter, she makes explicit the causal link between trauma and "female" disorders such as borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorders, multiple personality disorder, and depression. This link is often not seen, because the more benign connection between cultural programming and garden-variety "female" behavior (forgetfulness, hysteria, overemotionality, dependence) is not made. She then goes on to cover diagnosis and treatment of trauma-related disorders, with chapters on PTSD in rape, battering, and incest, and in the dissociative disorders. Included also is a chapter that focuses on professional ethics, particularly therapist motives and implications of diagnosis. The book concludes by addressing special issues in therapy, including iatrogenic symptoms, revictimization, therapy with patients who self-injure, victims of ritualized abuse, and enactment in the session