Trauma and the Avoidant Client

Trauma and the Avoidant Client.
Robert T. Muller.
W.W. Norton & Co. 2010.
ISBN: 9780393705737.

​Trauma and the Avoidant Client is a book about working with traumatized clients who tend to avoid attachment, intimacy, and painful feelings, using attachment-based clinical strategies for healing. The book focuses on practical psychotherapy approaches for clients who minimize trauma, withdraw emotionally, or rely on strong self-reliance and deactivation of attachment needs. Its table of contents includes topics such as avoidant defences, activating the attachment system, intervention strategies, mourning, the therapeutic relationship, countertransference, and a case example. It is aimed at mental health practitioners and trauma workers, and it was recognized with the 2011 Written Media Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation.
 
Robert T. Muller is a Canadian clinical psychologist and professor at York University in Toronto, known for his work on trauma, attachment, and psychotherapy. He trained at Harvard, taught at the University of Massachusetts, and has published widely on trauma treatment and interpersonal trauma. He also founded The Trauma & Mental Health Report, an online magazine on trauma and mental health.