Sandra L Bloom

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the Sanctuary Model, a trauma-informed, evidence-supported, relationship-based, high-commitment, high-performance organizational development approach that enables a program, a system, or a community to consciously and deliberately design or redesign their own workplaces so that establishing and maintaining safe moral climates becomes possible (Beer, 2009; Bloom, 2013a; Bloom & Farragher, 2010, 2013). Historical background and evolution of the sanctuary model is presented along with the articulation of its four current pillars: trauma theory, Sanctuary Commitments, S.E.L.F., and the Sanctuary Toolkit. Outcomes and implementation of the Sanctuary Model are discussed. Information on the Sanctuary Institute and certification program and resulting network are noted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Treating traumatized patients takes its toll on the treating clinician, giving rise over time to what Richard B. Gartner terms countertrauma in the psychoanalyst or therapist. Paradoxically, a clinician may also be imbued with a sense of optimism, or counterresilience , after learning how often the human spirit can triumph over heartbreakingly tragic experiences.　 　 Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience brings together a distinguished group of seasoned clinicians, both trauma specialists and psychoanalysts. Their personal reflections show what clinicians all too rarely dare to reveal: their personal traumatic material. They then discuss how they develop models for acknowledging, articulating, and synthesizing the countertrauma that arises from long-term exposure to patients’ often-harrowing trauma. Writing openly, using viscerally affecting language, the contributors to this exceptional collection share subjective and sometimes intimate material, shedding light on the inner lives of people who work to heal the wounds of psychic trauma.　　 By the same token, many of these clinicians describe how working intimately with traumatized individuals can affect the listener positively, recounting how patients’ resilience evokes counterresilience in the therapist, allowing the clinician to benefit from ongoing contact with patients who deal bravely with horrific adversity. Paradoxically, a clinician may be imbued with a sense of optimism after learning how often the human spirit can triumph over heartbreakingly tragic experiences.　 Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and trauma experts, offering a valuable resource to those beginning their careers in mental health work, to teachers and supervisors of trauma therapists, to experienced clinicians struggling with burnout, and to anyone who wants to understand the psychotherapeutic process or indeed the human condition. "This psychoanalytic synthesis of clinical expertise and conceptual reach goes beyond time-honored formulations, communicating a timeless but previously untapped reservoir of coherent wisdom. Its originality and unique emphasis on resiliency to trauma are embedded in the historical seedlings of psychoanalysis. Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience lingers within you long after you read it and place it lovingly on your desk, available for return engagements. Individual chapters are breathtaking tributes to Richard Gartner's widely celebrated ability to mutually engage, recognize, and expand the mind and soul of "self" and "other." Discover this groundbreaking contribution for yourself." - Philip Bromberg, Ph.D. , Author, The Shadow of the Tsunami. "This important book presents an impressive array of compassionate insight on the complexities of trauma therapists’ countertransference to their patients—both countertraumatic and counterresilient— from some of the foremost leaders in the field. The work we do with trauma survivors deeply affects who we are and how we function, both in and outside the office. All mental health professionals who work with trauma survivors could benefit from having this volume with the combined wisdom of such diverse master clinicians on hand. Offering guidance and remedies, this excellent in-depth compilation should make a valuable impact on training as well as potentially lead to more successful therapy outcomes." - Joan M. Cook, Ph.D. ,Yale School of Medicine, 2016 President, Division of Trauma Psychology (56) of the American Psychological Association . "Richard Gartner’s book of essays by trauma practitioners is an important contribution to the realities of working with the psychologically traumatized. With different voices and experiences, the contributors sing together in tune and with harmony about the challenges of this work and ways of thriving and rejoicing." - Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., Tulane University Distinguished Chair and Professor of Disaster Mental Health, New Orleans, LA, USA. "Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience moves our understanding of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue to the next level. Richard Gartner has assembled outstanding senior clinicians to write about their experiences dealing repeatedly with horrifically traumatized clients. This book is powerful, a must read for both new and experienced clinicians, reminding us of the potential toll on therapists and individuals, and ways to counter it. This is not an academic exercise, but an important reflection by key authors of their own experiences, inspiring us to explore our reactions and feelings as we work with clients. I appreciate the risk these authors take exposing their reactions, and their suggestions in dealing with these issues." - Robert Geffner, Ph.D., ABPP, ABN , Founding President, Institute on Violence, Abuse & Trauma, San Diego, CA "Gartner’s book is a comprehensive, rich, and varied collection of essays by seasoned trauma therapists. They contain forthright and honest explorations and perspectives on the authors’ diverse experiences with countertrauma and counterresilience when working with those suffering from trauma. These experts describe their walk with their clients through a murky but also exhilarating healing pathway, as well as the challenging responses within themselves that they must recognize and manage. Countertransference and vicarious traumatization take on new perspectives with Gartner’s concepts of countertrauma and counterresilience, which closely examine the interactional relationship between providers and clients. This book also critiques concepts of betrayal trauma by colleagues and institutions and the wisdom learned from such heartbreaking experiences. It is an immense contribution and a must for all those working within a therapeutic community -- clinicians, supervisors, and organizations. And it is not just for those in the field of complex trauma!" - Frances S. Waters, DCSW , author of Healing the Fractured Child: Diagnosis and Treatment of Youth with Dissociation, and past President, International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). "In all, this is a powerful and important book. (...) it has a lot to offer anyone interested in the field of trauma work." - Paul Brand , psychodynamic counsellor and trainer in Hampshire and West Sussex " Gartner is a leader in bringing attention to the suffering of men who were sexually abused as boys and in describing their treatment (Gartner 1999a, 1999b). In this new book he has expanded his focus to the relations between men, women, and their therapists working with trauma of all sorts. " - Daniel Gensler, PhD, William Alanson White Institute, New York, NY , The American Journal of Psychoanalysis Richard B. Gartner, Ph.D., is Training and Supervising Analyst, Faculty, and Founding Director of the Sexual Abuse Service at the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Institute, which has honored him with its Director’s Award for his contributions to the psychoanalytic understanding of trauma. He is the author of Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men (1999), runner up for the Gradiva Award for Best Book on a Clinical Subject given by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), as well as Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse (2005). He also edited Memories of Sexual Betrayal: Truth, Fantasy, Repression, and Dissociation (1996) and serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Psychoanalysis . He is a co-founder and Past President of MaleSurvivor.org, which honored him by establishing an award in his name for Clinical Contributions; is a Fellow of the Divisions of Psychoanalysis and Trauma of the American Psychological Association; and is Faculty for the Trauma Treatment Center at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. A pioneer in treating sexually abused men, Dr. Gartner has written and spoken widely about the subject and has been quoted in media throughout the world. Foreword. Personal and Conceptual Reflections by Laurie Anne Pearlman Introduction. An Evolution of Ideas Richard B. Gartner Chapter 1 Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience Richard B. Gartner Chapter 2. Encountering Trauma, Countertrauma, and Countering Trauma Sandra L. Bloom Chapter 3. The Interpersonal-Relational Field, Countertrauma, and Counterresilience: The Impact of Treating Trauma and Dissociation Sheldon Itzkowitz Chapter 4. Words on the Ground Mikele Rauch Chapter 5. Sexual Thoughts and Feelings in the Countertransference: Can We Dance to the Music, Safely? Richard A. Chefetz Chapter 6. Point counterpoint: The paradox of healing traumatic injury Karen Hopenwasser Chapter 7. Speaking to and Validating Emotional Truth in the Jury-Built Self: On Therapeutic Action in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Trauma Elizabeth Howell Chapter 8. Growing Together: A Contextual Perspective on Countertrauma, Counterresilience, and Countergrowth Steven N. Gold Chapter 9. Lessons I Never Wanted to Learn Kathy Steele Chapter 10. From the Holocaust to the Treatment Room: A Personal Journey Philip J. Kinsler Chapter 11. First Feelings: Countertransference Reactions in Disaster Mental Health Jill Bellinson Chapter 12. The Bristlecone Project: Transforming Survivors’ Trauma and Despair, and My Own David Lisak Chapter 13. Locked in with Amy: Treating the dying patient Ruth H. Livingston Chapter 14. Lessons Learned Treating Traumatized Teachers Jane E. Gartner Chapter 15. Countertrauma and her Twin, Counterresilience, and Why I Don’t Watch Scary Movies Anymore Alison Feit Chapter 16. Academic Trauma: Indirect Experience, Far-Reaching Effect Judith L. Alpert Chapter 17. Clinical Consultation Helps Transform Vicarious Traumatization Karen W. Saakvitne Chapter 18: Colleague Betrayal: Countertrauma Manifestation? Christine A. Courtois Afterword: Richard B. Ga

Creating Sanctuary is a description of a hospital-based program to treat adults who had been abused as children and the revolutionary knowledge about trauma and adversity that the program was based upon. This book focuses on the biological, psychological, and social aspects of trauma. Fifteen years later, Dr. Sandra Bloom has updated this classic work to include the groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences Study that came out in 1998, information about Epigenetics, and new material about what we know about the brain and violence.
This book is for courses in counseling, social work, and clinical psychology on mental health, trauma, and trauma theory.

"This is the third in a trilogy of books that chronicle the revolutionary changes in our mental health and human service delivery systems that have conspired to disempower staff and hinder client recovery. Creating Sanctuary documented the evolution of The Sanctuary Model therapeutic approach as an antidote to the personal and social trauma that clients bring to child welfare agencies, psychiatric hospitals, and residential facilities. Destroying Sanctuary details the destructive role of organizational trauma in the nation's systems of care. Restoring Sanctuary is a user-friendly manual for organizational change that addresses the deep roots of toxic stress and illustrates how to transform a dysfunctional human service system into a safe, secure, trauma-informed environment. At its heart, The Sanctuary Model represents an organizational value system that is committed to seven principles, which serve as anchors for decision making at all levels: non-violence, emotional intelligence, social learning, democracy, open communication, social responsibility, and growth and change. The Sanctuary Model is not a clinical intervention; rather, it is a method for creating an organizational culture that can more effectively provide a cohesive context within which healing from psychological and socially derived forms of traumatic experience can be addressed. Chapters are organized around the seven Sanctuary commitments, providing step-by-step, realistic guidance on creating and sustaining fundamental change."Restoring Sanctuary" is a roadmap to recovery for our nation's systems of care. It explores the notion that organizations are living systems themselves and as such they manifest various degrees of health and dysfunction, analogous to those of individuals. Becoming a truly trauma-informed system therefore requires a process of reconstitution within helping organizations, top to bottom. A system cannot be truly trauma-informed unless the system can create and sustain a process of understanding itself"--Provided by publisher.

Is bullying really that bad? Why do some people just watch it happening? How do you know if it is bullying or strong management? What kind of leaders are able to create positive working environments? The effects of bullying on organisations and individuals can be devastating and can adversely affect both the workers themselves and the productivity of the organisation that they work for. This book explores the impact of bullying from the perspective of both the employee and the organisation in which they work. In addition to describing the negative outcome of bullying, Workplace Bullying also looks at ways to promote resilience and the opportunity for growth and learning to take place. Divided into four sections, this book covers: the impact and symptoms of workplace bullying individual interventions organisational interventions underlying causes and future considerations. Workplace Bullying is essential reading for anyone with responsibility to help and support workers involved in bullying as a victim, supporter, or investigator. It offers organisations a chance to create an environment that will not only build a more resilient workforce, providing appropriate and effective interventions, but also provides solutions that will lead to the possibility of individual and organisational growth and development. Summary reprinted by permission of Routledge

What happens when a child experiences bereavement or trauma or both? When left untreated, childhood trauma crosses generational boundaries, developing risk factors that far outpace the threat of any other childhood disease, and yet, most children who have lived through a significant traumatic experience, usually do not get the care they need to begin their healing process. Children who have experienced trauma are often left grappling with devastating loss - loss of self esteem, security, i...

In addressing the issue of violence, our first purpose is to provide practical information that will help the reader to design specific intervention strategies aimed at preventing the escalation of violence in any community.But the study of violence has taught us that such approaches will be ineffective unless we have a coherent and meaningful framework within which to understand the continuum of violent perpetration...Only a shift in human understanding can help us to be more effective in slowing the pace of the disease down through the generations, from person to person, from family to family, from nation to nation.All of our cultural systems for making meaning are infiltrated with this lethal virus...human culture has become "trauma-organized" around the unrecognised, unmetabolized, and untransformed thoughts, feelings and behaviours of a post-traumatic response.

Bearing Witness: Violence and Collective Responsibility offers a unique layperson’s introduction to the scope and causes of violence and trauma theory and suggests ways we can all work to attack these causes. Upon completing this work, you will have a better understanding of the social causes of the violence epidemic and concrete suggestions for its long-term control. Bearing Witness addresses the cycle of violence by discussing some of the biological, psychological, social, and moral issues that go into determining whether a person will end up as a victim, perpetrator, or bystander to violent events and what happens to us when we are in one or all three of these roles. The authors look at a number of intersecting factors that play interdependent roles in creating a culture that promotes, supports, and even encourages violence. Specifically, you’ll gain invaluable insight into: trauma theory and traumatogenic forces--backdrops against which the chances of exposure to violence and the use of violence as a problemsolver are increased normal human development in the context of attachment theory and what occurs as a result of disrupted attachment bonds how rapid changes in modern society and the breakdown of the traditional family structure contribute to a level of social stress that promotes violence violence in the family, in the workplace, and in the schools--all places to which people turn for security social responses to violence--the ways in which certain responses decrease or increase the likelihood of violence the unhealthy balance of power between the genders and how violence or the threat of violence maintains this imbalance how our cultural standard of disavowing our normal emotional experience sets the stage for repeated and regular empathic failure, which leads to violence A framework for understanding the various aspects of the problem of violence, Bearing Witness delves into the various aspects of trauma--what trauma does to the body, the mind, the emotions, and relationships--before beginning to formulate proposals for initiating processes that lead to problemsolving. Once this knowledge base has been established, the authors give you the beginnings of an outline for reorganizing society with the aim of establishing a community that is responsive to the basic human need for safety and peace.