Trauma can result in a variety of symptoms and problems such as behavioral disorders, emotional dysregulation, sleep disturbances, recurring nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and learning and academic challenges. Children and adolescents who have posttraumatic stress disorder are usually presented to therapists in one of four clinical situations: (1) the traumatized child and parents request trauma-focused therapy, (2) the child with trauma history refuses treatment, (3) a parent is impaired by their own trauma history but does not want to receive treatment, (4) a child has experienced trauma but the parent wants to focus on a behavioral issue and symptoms rather than the trauma. Family Therapy for Treating Trauma offers a stand-alone family therapy approach for trauma survivors and provides a cross-culturally competent family treatment framework for working with trauma. It outlines both how to assess family patterns that reinforce or exacerbate effects of trauma and how to mobilize the healing power of family relationships to moderate or resolve effects of trauma. Via an integrative approach, the book offers flexible ways to adapt to client choices so as to enhance difficult to engage clients and families. It serves as a resource for professional audiences and can be offered as a text for courses on both family therapy and trauma treatment.

Grove, who trained for many years with Haley, has been in this enviable position. In this book, which Haley calls "not profound, but practical," the two authors discuss cases typical of what therapists in mental health centers face: serious and chronic problems, threats of family dissolution or violence, and involvement of several systems, such as the court and protective services. Grove presents provocative questions: Should he try to reunite a couple even though the husband has been violent in the past and may be again? How can one empower a stepfather who is inept and unemployed and acts like a teenager himself? When a woman can't remember much of her childhood and so suspects she was abused, is remembering necessary? How does a couple's current sexual relationship relate to past abuse? If one partner of a divorcing couple is having an affair, should the therapist help the other partner become aware of the affair - and how? Together he and Haley devise innovative strategies for these problematic situations. While starting with individual cases, the discussion ranges widely over the dilemmas that arise in hypnotic and strategic family therapy. Haley clarifies many of his positions, shows where his position has changed over the years, and introduces new techniques. This is a marvelous chance to interact with a master of psychotherapy.