Working with Vicarious Trauma

2 CE credits for Licensed Psychoanalysts and Social Workers

IF YOU PAY ONLINE AFTER 3PM ON FRIDAY, PLEASE CALL TO LET US KNOW.

Practitioners and General Public: $40 

Add to Cart

Students: $10 

Add to Cart

Trauma is contagious; its powerful affect and frequently unformulated memories can be transmitted—sometimes nonverbally and often mysteriously—within families, across generations, and from patient to clinician; in the latter case it is commonly referred to as vicarious trauma. Over the thirty years or so that Dr. Boulanger has worked with survivors of massive psychic trauma, she has experienced a range of powerful reactions to her patients’ narratives--or lack of them. These reactions have often been affect-laden, but at other times they have involved impressions that have been hard to pin down and/or attribute to the work with a particular patient. How are these experiences transmitted? Can we consider them countertransference? How should we treat them in ourselves and our patients? Dr. Boulanger will invite the audience to share their experiences and think through these questions with her.

Ghislaine Boulanger, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and a member of the Relational faculty at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is on the editorial boards of Division/Review and the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. Since the publication of her book Wounded by Reality: Understanding and Treating Adult Onset Trauma, she has taught and published extensively on the psychodynamic dilemmas facing adults who have survived violent and life-threatening events and the clinicians who work with them. The latter group is the focus of this evening’s talk.

Download Flier