Dialogues with Forgotten Voices: Relational Perspectives on Child Abuse Trauma and the Treatment of Severe Dissociative Disorders Book

Psychotherapist Harvey Schwartz is an expert in treating the severe end of the child sexual abuse continuum, where victims' experiences are so unthinkable and their adaptations to a variety of tortures so complex that the rest of us are tempted to pronounce them fictions. Throughout Dialogues With Forgotten Voices, Schwartz reveals how not only loved ones but also therapists, counselors and doctors become complicit and subvert survivors' struggles to heal. He synthesizes trauma theory and relational psychoanalysis to make sense of perpetrator, collaborator, and victim pathologies and exposes the intricate challenges of therapy for and with severely dissociative individuals. Schwartz's office is one of many stops on a little known and often misunderstood underground railroad for traumatized patients whose voices have been suppressed and negated, and for therapists struggling with the painful transference-countertransference experiences of treating them. His diverse and moving case material illuminates many aspects of treatment, and reveals how to put into practice the extensive theories that are examined throughout this articulate and scholarly work.Read More