Re-Trauma Case Study

The client is a 24-year-old male located in Washington. He is currently separated from his wife of 6 years, due to his excessive drinking, and is now living alone. The client is 4 weeks sober, and has been actively avoiding alcohol to prevent relapse. One of the ways that he is avoiding relapse is by working on expanding his social support system. When his wife left, the client was isolated, as he does not have contact with the rest of his family. The client soon realized that this was unhealthy, and decided to reach out to some old military friends for support. He now has a strong support system to utilize when he has urges to drink. The client is also now interested in attending college to further his education. He is currently looking into degrees centered on physical training and other hands-on subjects at his local community college. The client also expressed his wish to change jobs before his degree is completed. He asserts that he is unhappy at his current place of employment, the warehouse, and would like to find a job that is more stimulating.
Although the client has …show more content…
One of these concerns is that of re-traumatization (Barrett, 2013). TF-CBT requires that the client talk about the trauma that they experienced, essentially making them re-live it so that they can learn how to better process it. Re-living the trauma has the risk of re-traumatizing the client, especially if the therapist does not recognize extreme stress in the client and continue¬s pushing through the treatment (Barrett, 2013). Another concern lies in boundary issues that may occur in trauma focused therapy. Touch may be misinterpreted, or may be a trigger for a trauma client, without the therapist’s knowledge (Barrett, 2013). A trauma client’s personal space may also be different from a non-trauma client, which has the potential to create anxiety if the therapist happens to sit too closely to their space barrier (Barrett,