Fear in the Therapy Room: a survival guide for working with complex trauma.
As counsellors, psychotherapists, clinical and counselling psychologists and mental health nurses and workers, our professional lives are spent engaging with people whose fear systems (our automatic biological responses to threat and danger) are in a constant state of activation. This triggers our own fear responses and in the therapy room we can experience tension, anxiety, fright, loss of our ability to concentrate or think clearly, anger, irritation, frustration, feelings of uselessness and hopelessness or extreme exhaustion.
Many therapists feel there is something wrong with them – that they are inadequate therapists because they feel these things. Nothing could be further from the truth. As one stringed instrument resonates when another is played, so our bodies pick up on the emotions our clients are experiencing and give us vital information about their distress which enables us to be of real help.
However, this resonance, which involves the constant activation of our own fear-system responses, has a huge impact on our body and our mind. It is a significant energy drain, and without a good understanding of what is happening to us, of the difficulties we are up against in this work, and of the massive support that we need, we can easily lose our self-confidence, become discouraged and overwhelmed and eventually burn-out.
This book offers a simple explanation of the biology of the fear-system, so when it activates as we work, we do not become alarmed but can treat it as a source of information. It provides a clear theory of complex trauma (the outcome of the fear system that cannot switch off) so that we can understand how fear is activated in the therapy room and how we can work with it. It explains the importance of working with the body in the context of complex trauma and illustrates various ways of doing this, and also outlines the complexities, frustrations, and setbacks of this work, and why there are no quick fixes.
The book also helps to clarify when we can work in an exploratory way, and when we have to pause this work and focus on regulating fear responses, both in ourselves and in our clients. It notes the particular difficulty of working as a therapist in fear-driven institutions, and the importance of finding or creating a professional support network within which we can feel genuinely safe.
“Fear in the Therapy Room” is due to be published by Hammersmith Books on 25th June 2026. Paperback, plus free eBook £19.99 eBook on its own £9.99.
Pre-publication offer Paperback plus free eBook at £15.99 including UK postage and packing, or eBook on its own at £6.99 available during week commencing 11 May.
To access the offer, click on website: https://www.hammersmithbooks.co.uk/product/Fear-in-the-Therapy-Room/
The website shows the full price of the book, but when you go to your basket you will find a “coupon code” box. For the paperback enter
FEAR26
and click “Apply coupon” and you will see the offer price before you finalise the purchase. For the ebook alone enter
FEAR26E
To view Contents, Introduction and First Chapter:
https://www.book2look.com/book/kfm9ZEc2Tn