ABSTRACT
Enactment may be viewed as `acting in' (as in self-harm) or `acting out' (as in anti-social behaviour). In the context of a therapeutic relationship, it may also be understood as `acting across', or the enacting of the past in the present between client and therapist. This chapter examines the enactment of trauma from an organismic, person-centred perspective, exploring how clients enact past physical and psychological trauma within the therapeutic relationship. We introduce this perspective with regard to the nature of the organism and self over time, from which we identify a number of understandings with regard to trauma. Then we discuss the principles of an organismic person-centred approach by way of introducing certain therapeutic conditions originally identi®ed by Rogers (1957, 1959). Finally, drawing on Levine with Frederick's (1997) work on healing trauma and our own practice, we discuss the application of the person-centred perspectives, and speci®cally the therapeutic conditions, to work with past trauma in the present.
