Book Review: A Guide to the Helping Profession

ent political climates. For example, a Turkish psychiatrist indicated little influence of September 11 on his clientele, as they are already accustomed to living with daily security threats. Although the information presented in this chapter was interesting, it was difficult to determine how to generalize this information, as only 13 people with very different professional specialties and worldviews responded and provided answers of varying length and specificity. In chapter 6, Gold provides a transcript of his interview with Jerrold M. Post, a highly acclaimed psychiatrist with a specialty in political psychology and terrorist profiling. Post discusses the procedure of profiling and general conclusions he has drawn regarding the psychology of terrorists. For example, he refutes the idea that most terrorists experience individual psychopathology and discusses the power of group psychology in creating terrorists from very early ages. Post also details the political context in which terrorism occurs and illustrates his four-pronged societal approach to diminishing terrorism, such as providing legal pathways for political activism to inhibit the growth of antisocial groups and creating credible ways for terrorists to exit their groups. This chapter, though hard to follow in some places, provides the reader with excellent information to share with victims so they can gain an understanding of violence to contribute to their therapeutic meaning-making processes. The impact of terrorism on children is discussed in chapter 7. The authors, Gurwitch, Pfefferbaum, and Leftwich, report results of studies conducted with children who witnessed the Oklahoma City bombing and provide conclusions that may be applied to children dealing with September 11 and its aftermath. For example, the research indicates that infants and toddlers experience trauma through sleep disturbances, regression, and trauma re-enactment in play. Additionally, the authors describe interventions that may help children cope and highly emphasize the importance of caregiver debriefing and support, as children tend to model and respond to their parents and other caregivers in trauma recovery. Interviews with a Palestinian psychiatrist and an Israeli traumatologist are transcribed in chapters 8 and 9. Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad El-Sarraj, in his interview with Meldrum, discusses how Palestinians of different generations respond to trauma based on their personal experiences. He also notes that 15% of Palestinian children exhibit lags in physical and intellectual development based on their experience with trauma and that children tend to cope better when they reside in stable homes with a secure caregiver. Furthermore, ElSarraj describes his participation in professional support groups for his own self-care in working with such sensitive issues. Ofra Ayalon, the Israeli traumatologist, in her interview with Waters, describes several acts of terrorism experienced by Israelis and how they have impacted the Israeli population. Ayalon also emphasizes the importance in using a community approach to trauma practice, as trauma impacts not only those who are directly affected in a close-knit culture. For example, many people negatively impacted by trauma are those who realize “this could have been me.” Ayalon also describes how to implement large-scale, traumarelated prevention and educational services and provides references to treatment and curriculum manuals. In the last chapter, Difede and Eskra describe a case study of a survivor of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and her successful experience with Cognitive Processing Therapy. These authors provide a concise and replicable description of her treatment and provide data from both one-year and twoand-a-half-year follow-up assessments. Although this chapter is helpful in understanding how to relate trauma practice to post-terrorism traumatic symptoms, people recovering from September 11 likely experienced and continue to experience different reactions that may affect treatment due to the magnitude of September 11 and the more pronounced impact on world politics and perceived security. Additionally, a followup with the client following September 11 would have provided helpful information in how trauma may be re-experienced and implications for possible further treatment. Overall, I found this book to be extremely interesting and helpful in my conceptualization and application of trauma practice. The information presented herein reflected and expanded upon current ideas in the trauma and coping literature that are not always conveyed to counseling practitioners in traditional training programs. I personally experienced some difficulty with this reading, as it forces the reader to reexperience the trauma of September 11, and encourage other readers to acknowledge their own reactions and read the book in at least several different sittings to fully digest and process the material. I am impressed with the editors’ and authors’ emphasis on a multicultural context and their efforts in intertwining trauma theory with practical applications and recommend the book to counselors in all specialty areas.