Disability Psychotherapy: An Innovative Approach to Trauma-Informed Care

Author(s) : Patricia Frankish

Book Details

Publisher : Routledge
Published : December 2015
Cover : Paperback
Pages : 162
Category :
Individual Psychotherapy
Catalogue No : 37169
ISBN 13 : 9781782203162
ISBN 10 : 1782203168

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Much has been written about cognitive development in those who are cognitively impaired. Much is written about attachment for people who don’t have disabilities. Yet people with disabilities have suffered discrimination and neglect of their emotional needs, perhaps because the pain of difference cannot be tolerated, perhaps because of lack of will or lack of knowledge. This book aims to help to fill the knowledge gap and to encourage others to overcome their resistance to facing the pain, and will be an important contribution to our understanding of the world of disability and emotional deprivation.

In this book - a result of over twenty years experience with people who have disabilities and additional distress as a result of traumatic life experiences - an attempt is made to bring together what we know about early emotional development and the consequences of failure to provide an emotionally nurturing experience, and the results are then applied to people with disabilities. There are ways of working that help, and when appropriately targeted, make a huge difference to some very complex and distressed lives, and the evidence points to the possibility of effective interventions to correct the damage, and that with the correct intervention, individuals can be saved from incarceration in secure units, for example, and have a much improved quality of life.

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‘Patricia Frankish has been developing a way of providing psychotherapy to people who have intellectual and development disabilities for over thirty years. In this book she brings together the influences that have shaped her approach and the model she has arrived at. The most significant influences in her work have been psychoanalytic thinkers and developmental practitioners, notably Bowlby, Winnicott and Mahler. She illustrates the applicability and usefulness of these models in providing a psychotherapeutically-informed approach to helping and supporting people who have disabilities. When the author started this work in the 1980s she was working against the perceived wisdom of the psychoanalytic schools which then, as now, struggle with disability issues. However, along with others, she has had to work outside of them and became a key player in the formation of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability. Her model and approach is not just about individual psychotherapy but also about working with systems. She has also long argued for the recognition of trauma as a key issue in the lives of people who have disabilities and it is no surprise that her approach is trauma-informed.’
- Professor Nigel Beail, Professional Lead for Psychological Services, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; Professor of Psychology, University of Sheffield

‘This is a very long-awaited book. Dr Patricia Frankish has not only been a disability therapy pioneer, but also a key theoretician, clinician, organiser, strategic thinker, teacher, presenter and researcher. She has created the only psychotherapy disability training in the UK and provides bespoke specialist residential care for those no-one else can treat. It will be no surprise for readers to realise that some of Patricia’s knowledge comes from her lived experience of parents living and working in a “mental” hospital. Whilst she helpfully and generously educates us as to her main theoretical influences, it is her personal application of Margaret Mahler’s theories that have provided the disability field with the greatest tools. This book is clear, accessible, seminal and rich with lived experience.’
- Valerie Sinason, President of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability, and editor of Trauma, Dissociation, and Multiplicity

About the Author(s)

Pat Frankish is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with many years of experience in the field of disability. Her doctoral study established a method for measuring emotional developmental stages in people who had suffered trauma and consequent interference in the developmental process. She is from Lincolnshire and after working in a range of settings and spending six years in North Yorkshire and Teesside, she has settled back in Lincolnshire with her own business in partnership with her daughter. They specialise in providing services for people with complex needs, using the model that Pat has developed. They offer direct support, training, and therapy, either as a package or one component. For those who need it they also provide accommodation. Pat has been President of the British Psychological Society, was a founding member of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability, and is an active member of her local Church and community.

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