Working With Men Survivors of Trauma and Abuse

In Working With Men Survivors of Trauma and Abuse, Dr. Laura S. Brown demonstrates her approach to therapy with men who have been abused or suffered trauma in the past. In this session she works with a 30-year-old man who was physically abused as a child. Dr. Brown is able to begin the process of helping this man to feel safe enough to trust another person.

In addition to watching Dr. Brown discuss her feminist therapeutic approach in an interview, viewers of the DVD may opt to listen to Dr. Brown's voice-over comments during the therapy session itself. Her commentary provides great insight into the life of a man who has experienced childhood trauma.

Feminist therapy concerns itself with issues of gender, power, and social location in the lives of clients. As such, it's unusually well-suited as a framework for understanding trauma and interpersonal violence because much of such violence occurs as a result of people's positions of relative powerlessness in the social realm.

In this video the client is invited to explore his extreme difficulties with trust and personal vulnerability stemming from his experiences of victimization and to begin to see how his strategies for coping with that abuse have created difficulties in his current life.

Dr. Brown's focus in this session, as in all of her work, is on the empowerment of the client. In the introductory and voice-over remarks, she shares her analysis of how the gendering of victimization can make recovery from childhood abuse a particular challenge for men.

Laura S. Brown, PhD, is a clinical and forensic psychologist in private practice in Seattle. Her publications span the fields of feminist therapy theory and practice, ethics, multiculturalism, lesbian and gay issues, and trauma.

She is the winner of the 1995 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Public Service, and the Sarah Haley Award for Clinical Excellence from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

For more information about Dr. Brown, please see her Web siteopens in new window.

• Brown, L. S. (1994). Subversive dialogues: Theory in feminist therapy. New York: Basic Books.
• Brown, L. S. (2003). Sexuality, lies, and loss: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual perspectives on trauma. Journal of Trauma Practice, 2, 55–68.
• Brown, L. S. (2004). Feminist paradigms of trauma treatment. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41, 464–471.
• Pope, K. S., & Brown, L. S. (1996). Recovered memories of abuse: Assessment, therapy, forensics. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association

APA Videos

• EMDR for Trauma: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
  Francine Shapiro
• Engaging Men in Psychotherapy
  Matt Englar-Carlson
• Feminist Therapy Over Time
  Laura S. Brown
• Forgiveness
  Robert D. Enright and Richard P. Fitzgibbons
• Positive Psychology With Male Clients
  Mark S. Kiselica
• Psychotherapy With Men
  Mark A. Stevens
• Working With Women Survivors of Trauma and Abuse
  Laura S. Brown

APA Book

• Trauma and Substance Abuse: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment of Comorbid Disorders, Second Edition
  Edited by Paige Ouimette and Jennifer P. Read