ABSTRACT
Many clients report a terrible pre-trauma history with possible psychological debility at some point pre-trauma. But such pre-existing debility may have been time limited and related to a chronic stressor. Thus, whilst previous traumas may have made them more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of their most recent trauma the historical traumas may not be an appropriate focus, serving to distract from the implications of their most recent trauma for today. The danger is that the very vividness of the historical traumas can give them an exaggerated salience – an example of the availability heuristic. In this chapter, a case example is considered of a person who in childhood suffered the sudden disappearance of her father in a war-torn area, took refuge in another country only to be seriously assaulted. But unfortunately, the therapeutic treatment environment was not benign as her mother suffered from long-term COVID, and she had concerns about contracting it, it was a mute-point whether these concerns were ‘excessive’.
