ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the increasingly influential trauma paradigm in mental health, and the implications that it holds for women presenting to mental health services with experiences of gender-based violence. Trauma-informed practices are widely thought to provide more holistic and empowering understandings of mental health service users in comparison to mainstream psychiatric practices. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the extent to which such claims about trauma-informed practices in mental health are being realised, and to outline and extend a small body of literature that has advocated for caution relating to the proliferation of the trauma concept in mental health. After describing the core components of a trauma-informed perspective in mental health, and its positive contributions in re-conceptualising women’s distress (for example, its critique of Borderline Personality Disorder), the chapter delves into the limitations of trauma discourses. Ongoing limitations of the trauma paradigm include a preoccupation with women’s symptomatology, and an emphasis on therapeutic interventions at the expense of socio-political action.
