Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor’s Guide to Complex Trauma, 2nd ed.

by Heather Davediuk Gingrich

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2020

Overview

Nearly every professional counselor will encounter clients with a history of complex trauma. Yet many counselors are not adequately prepared to help those suffering from complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), including survivors of child abuse, religious cult abuse, and domestic violence. A lack of consistent terminology in the field makes finding resources difficult, but without reliable training counselors risk inadvertently retraumatizing those they are trying to help.

In this second edition of Restoring the Shattered Self, Heather Davediuk Gingrich provides an essential resource for Christian counselors to help fill the gap between their training and the realities of trauma-related work. Drawing on over thirty years of experience with complex trauma survivors in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines, she ably integrates the established research on trauma therapy with insights from her own experience and an intimate understanding of the special concerns related to Christian counseling.

In addition to presenting a three-phase treatment model for C-PTSD based on Judith Herman’s classic work, Gingrich addresses how to treat dissociative identity disorder clients, respond to survivors’ spiritual issues, build resilience as a counselor in this taxing work, and empower churches to help in the healing process.

This new edition is updated throughout to match the DSM-5 and includes new content on how the body responds to trauma, techniques for helping clients stay within the optimal zone of nervous system arousal, and additional summary sidebars. With this thoughtful guide, counselors and pastors will be equipped to provide the long-term help that complex trauma survivors need to live more abundantly.

Key Features

• Provides an essential resource for Christian counselors to help fill the gap between their training and the realities of trauma-related work
• Explores the special concerns related to Christian counseling
• Updated throughout to match the DSM-5 and includes new content on how the body responds to trauma

Contents

Shattered

Shattering the Self: The Effects of Trauma on Childhood Development

Rebuilding the Shattered Self: The Process of Counseling

Phase I: Safety and Stabilization

Phase II: Trauma Processing—Integrating the Components of a Traumatic Experience

Phase III: Consolidation and Resolution

Additional Treatment Considerations for the Client with Dissociative Identity Disorder

Spiritual Issues and Resources in the Treatment of Complex PTSD

Vicarious Traumatization and Building Counselor Resilience

How the Church Can Help

Appendix A: Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES-II)

Appendix B: Coping Mechanisms

Top Highlights

“The younger the child, the greater the impact a potentially traumatic event often has, both in terms of neurobiology and psychology.” (Page 17)

“As early attachment relationships provide the foundation for intimacy in all future relationships, individuals who have experienced relational trauma in childhood are at great risk for dysfunctional relationships throughout life. Unless there is a redemptive relationship later on, or a positive intervention through therapy, this cycle will tend to perpetuate itself even into future generations through the inability of parents who were abused themselves to establish healthy bonds with their own children due to their own relational deficits. The good news is that the positive ripple effects of the healing of attachment wounds also can extend into future generations.” (Page 29)

“Christian counselors are in a unique position to not focus solely on alleviating their clients’ symptoms, but to envision the potential inherent in their clients as men or women whom God has created for his purposes.” (Page 12)

“Intrusive symptoms occur when aspects of the traumatic event are relived in some way” (Page 4)

“The normal process of personality development, however, breaks down for children who have been traumatized, because the regular states do not adequately provide the means to deal with the horror, fear, guilt, shame, pain, and other intense emotions that are associated with abuse. Therefore, discrete trauma states are created to help cope with the situation. These states can then be reactivated following a triggering stimulus. If they are entered into regularly, such traumatic responses can become ‘hardwired’ through neurobiological processes (Siegel, 2003) and can ultimately evolve into behavioral or personality traits.” (Page 30)

Praise for the Print Edition

Trauma is no respecter of persons—not of age, gender, status, or spirituality. Dr. Heather Gingrich’s new edition of Restoring the Shattered Self continues to be on the cutting edge in this emerging field. For counselors new to trauma work, the therapeutic examples and approaches based on Dr. Gingrich’s extensive counseling experience provide thoughtful, professionally sound, and spiritually sensitive ways to work with complex trauma. This is a ‘must read’ for new counselors as well as seasoned counselors who can benefit from her seamless spiritual integration.

—Kathie Erwin, associate professor, Regent University

In Restoring the Shattered Self, Heather Gingrich distills years of wisdom gleaned from counseling victims through the three phases of establishing safety, processing traumatic memories, and consolidating selves shattered through complex trauma. Her compassionate presence as a counselor and supervisor is conveyed through many poignant illustrations. Now helpfully updated in its second edition, this invaluable textbook needs to be read by every Christian counselor.

—Carrie Doehring, associate professor of pastoral care, Iliff School of Theology, Denver

Restoring the Shattered Self is an excellent resource for both Christian and non-Christian counselors. It contains many useful techniques, wise cautions, and useful resources and provides a thoughtful overview of the literature. Non-Christian counselors can benefit from the author’s clinical wisdom without having to adopt the explicitly Christian treatment techniques included in the book.

—Colin A. Ross, founder and president of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma

Product Details

• Title: Title of Collection
• Author: Heather Davediuk Gingrich
• Publisher: IVP
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 285
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Counseling

About Heather Davediuk Gingrich

Heather Davediuk Gingrich is a counselor, scholar, teacher and former missionary. She is professor of counseling at Denver Seminary and maintains a small private practice working with complex trauma survivors. She is the author of Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor's Guide to Complex Trauma. She began working in this field over twenty-five years ago in Canada, and continued to develop this specialization in the Philippines where she counseled, taught and completed her doctoral studies on complex trauma. She continues her international involvements with Care and Counsel International, as well as adjunct teaching at the Asia Graduate School of Theology in the Philippines and seminaries in Guatemala, Sri Lanka and Singapore. She also conducts mental health assessments for missionary candidates. Gingrich is a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), the Trauma Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Her scholarly work focuses on understanding and working with those who have histories of child abuse and other forms of relational trauma, particularly as they relate to issues of Christian faith and spirituality. She has been married to her husband Fred for twenty-nine years and has two young adult sons.