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Working Relationally with Adolescents Who Have Experienced Complex Interpersonal Trauma: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Amari, Nicola; Mahoney, Adam

Authors

Nicola Amari



Abstract

The study explores practitioners’ experiences of working with adolescents with complex interpersonal trauma. Five mental health professionals were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to identify themes related to the research question. Three superordinate themes emerged: “The distance-relationship dynamic”; “The unknown self”; “Practitioners’ presence”. Participants reported the fragility of their relationships with clients, enhanced awareness of their professional and personal identity, and highlighted the importance of meeting their clients as persons. Results are discussed within the literature that considers the role of the person of the therapist to foster therapeutic change. Future research could explore the role of therapeutic distance, the interplay between transference-countertransference and attachment dynamics, and the relevance of practitioners’ playfulness with traumatised youth. Finally, this study proposes a model of use of self as “compassion-in-action” to express practitioners’ ‘response-ability’ to their clients’ trauma as commitment to social justice.

Citation

Amari, N., & Mahoney, A. (2022). Working Relationally with Adolescents Who Have Experienced Complex Interpersonal Trauma: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, 15, 75-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-021-00349-x

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 7, 2021
Online Publication Date Mar 24, 2021
Publication Date 2022-03
Deposit Date Mar 29, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2021
Journal Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma
Print ISSN 1936-1521
Electronic ISSN 1936-153X
Publisher BMC
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 15
Pages 75-87
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-021-00349-x
Keywords Counselling psychology, Complex trauma, Adolescence, Use of self, Person of the therapist
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2756190

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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