ABSTRACT
There is no way to sugar-coat it: doing therapy with clients impacted by family violence is hard work. Personally, professionally, and organizationally, therapists who do this work face a number of challenges, as is evident on every page of this book. What, then, is the line between acknowledging our natural, human responses to such situations and risking that these personal reactions get in the way of effective therapy? How can therapists prepare for and respond to situations like feeling like one is going to cry during a counseling session, being afraid for one’s own safety during a session, or becoming increasingly disillusioned and burnt out toward one’s job? These issues are crucial to address, and yet they often are so overlooked in the training of professionals who work with clients impacted by family violence (e.g., Goldblatt, Buchbinder, Eisikovits, & Arizon-Mesinger, 2009; Iliffe & Steed, 2000; Nelson-Gardell & Harris, 2003; Winefield & Barlow, 1995).
