Finding Solid Ground: Overcoming Obstacles in Trauma Treatment

Even seasoned clinicians can struggle when trying to help to highly traumatized and dissociative patients. This book and its accompanying workbook for patients provide an evidence-informed, pragmatic, and compassionate approach to the stabilization and treatment of complex trauma and dissociation. These books will help clinicians immediately begin assessment and treatment with traumatized individuals using a comprehensive therapeutic program that includes session-by-session information sheets and exercises developed through decades of clinical experience, studies, and feedback from individuals living with trauma-related disorders.

Finding Solid Ground: Overcoming Obstacles in Trauma Treatment offers guidance on how to use the program in individual and group contexts, expert recommendations for assessing dissociation, and clinical vignettes that focus on how to overcome common challenges in trauma treatment. The companion workbook includes the patient-facing Information Sheets and Exercises that are the foundation of the Finding Solid Ground program. Together, these books present a coherent, comprehensive approach to trauma treatment that rests upon a clearly articulated understanding of the neurobiological impacts of trauma. Clinicians of all levels of experience will find these books inspiring, informative, and accessible.

Bethany Brand, Ph.D., a Professor at Towson University, is an expert in trauma disorders and dissociation. She serves on international and national task forces developing guidelines for the assessment and treatment of trauma disorders. Dr. Brand’s research focuses on a series of international
dissociative disorders treatment studies (TOP DD studies); assessment methods for distinguishing dissociative disorders from other conditions including malingering; training therapists about treating trauma; and the assessment of the accuracy and adequacy of textbooks’ coverage of trauma. In her
private practice, Dr. Brand treats complex trauma patients and serves as a forensic expert in trauma-related cases.

Hugo Schielke, Ph.D. is the Trauma Services Development Lead for Homewood Health Centre and the Centre’s Traumatic Stress Injury & Concurrent Program in Guelph, Ontario. He specializes in the assessment and treatment of trauma-related disorders, and his work is informed by his post-doctoral
fellowship at The Trauma Disorders Program at Sheppard Pratt Health System and his involvement with the California Department of State Hospitals’ Trauma-Informed Care Project. His research is focused on the treatment of trauma-related disorders, psychotherapy process, and the relational components
of psychotherapy.

Francesca Schiavone, MD, FRCPC. is a staff psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic, and the Women’s Trauma Program. She is also a Lecturer at the University of Toronto. Her work includes providing
diagnostic assessment and treatment of a range of trauma-related disorders as well as teaching and supervision of postgraduate trainees.

Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D. is a Psychiatry Professor and Harris-Woodman Chair at Western University of Canada, where she directs the Clinical Research Program for PTSD. Ruth has over 25 years of clinical and research experience with trauma-related disorders. Ruth has received numerous research and
teaching awards, including the Banting Award for Military Health Research. She has published over 150 research articles and book chapters focusing on brain adaptations to psychological trauma and novel adjunct treatments for PTSD. Ruth has co-authored T^{he Effects of Early Life Trauma on Health and
Disease: The Hidden Epidemic} and Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, Treatment.