Please note that the talks in 2020 will be moving to the Clerici Building Room CLC 1.02 . This is reached via the Gypsy Lane entrance to Oxford Brookes University. There is a small parking area in front of this Building

Complex trauma involves chronic, repeated or sustained trauma often accompanied by captivity. Initially this was the description given by Judith Herman in relation to Vietnam Veterans, survivors of domestic violence and adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Her descriptions now form the basis of the new psychiatric diagnosis of Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. The evidence suggests that this would also apply to other forms of developmental trauma and severe adult trauma such as torture and imprisonment and many refugee experiences.

In psychotherapeutic practice, we would recognise many of these complex trauma patients as those individuals who may be difficult to engage, high risk and evoking powerful countertransference experiences and inevitable enactments. Working with this group stretches our psychodynamic frame and may require a more flexible, adaptive and at times innovative way of making authentic therapeutic contact.

In this talk, I will outline why this may be the case by using psychoanalytic, neurobiological and attachment theories and suggest ways in which to understand and work with clinical features such as hyperarousal, dissociation, somatization and failures of symbolization.

Dr Joanne Stubley is a Medical Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. She leads the Tavistock Trauma Service and is a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She is also trained in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (tf-CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and MDMA – assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. Dr Stubley is Co-Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Psychotherapy Faculty Task group on historical child sexual abuse and is a Clinical Trustee at the charity Freedom from Torture.