ABSTRACT
Drawing on critical feminist scholarship, this chapter presents a different approach to discussing the influence of trauma therapy, offering instead an examination of the socio-cultural conditions that may sit behind trauma therapy's immense rise in popularity within psychiatric contexts. It argues that trauma therapy has gained traction within mental health services not because of a sudden interest within psychiatry in feminist activism, but rather due to the ability of trauma therapy to reduce complex social justice issues into psychological symptoms, which are then thought to be curable through expert mental health treatment. In an article about the pressing need for training in trauma-related material to be incorporated 'across all professions', Courtois and Gold (2009: 18) argue for an acknowledgement of 'the ubiquity of trauma in human experience and the variety of posttraumatic reactions and disorders identified as occurring in its aftermath'.
