Evan Senreich

In recent years, older adults have been the fastest-growing demographic group within the U.S. prison population, often facing significant bio-psychosocial difficulties when reentering the community. To examine how social workers can best assist older adults in the reentry process, three focus groups with 26 older formerly incarcerated inmates were conducted in New York City to explore their experiences transitioning out of prison. Seven themes were identified that demonstrated the resilience of this population to self-actualize in the face of societal marginalization, as well as the value of social workers utilizing anti-oppressive and empowerment perspectives when working with them.

This concluding chapter begins by describing the significant commonalities of the 15 experiential therapies for treating trauma described in this book despite their wide diversity in theoretical underpinnings and clinical processes. These similarities include their emphasis on phenomenological methods, the primacy of the client-therapist relationship, the profound attentiveness of the therapist to what is occurring in the moment, the use of creativity, a holistic mind-body perspective, and a continuous focus on the safety of the client in the therapeutic space to avoid their re-traumatization. This chapter then discusses future directions experiential psychotherapies need to take including the performing of far more research to validate their efficacy for the treatment of the ramifications of trauma, the development of a well-trained workforce, and the adaptation of methods for telehealth services.

Addressing traumatic experiences is a frequent occurrence in current psychotherapy practice and many authors and clinicians point out the need for the use of therapeutic modalities that go beyond the cognitive processes and incorporate more integrative, experiential sensory or somatic approaches. The number of experiential psychotherapies has grown substantially over the past decades and there is a great need for clinicians and students to become familiar with these newer treatment approaches. This chapter serves as an introduction to this book, which describes 15 different types of contemporary experiential psychotherapies and how each one can be utilized in the treatment of trauma. This Introduction has four sections, starting with the definition and characteristics of experiential psychotherapy. The second section presents an overview of trauma and clinical issues pertaining to it, followed by a section regarding neurophysiology and its application to experiential therapies. The final section provides a historical overview of experiential psychotherapy and the 15 treatment modalities presented in this book.

Experiential Therapies for Treating Trauma offers 17 chapters, with 15 of them focusing on a different experiential psychotherapy for treating trauma, written by clinicians with expertise in that modality. No other book contains descriptions of such a wide array of experiential therapies under one cover. Readers will obtain both a comprehensive overview of the many experiential therapies that are currently utilized and specific knowledge regarding how to utilize each of them in psychotherapy practice. The authors of each chapter emphasize that in working with clients impacted by trauma, there is a need for the use of therapeutic modalities that go beyond the cognitive processes central to talk therapy and incorporate more holistic, sensory approaches that emphasize the building of a strong relationship between the client and therapist. Both experienced clinicians and students will find this book to be an invaluable resource to enhance their knowledge of how to use experiential therapies and to motivate them to obtain advanced training in modalities that spark their interest.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many 12-step meetings rapidly transitioned from an in-person to an online format. In this qualitative focus group study, 17 attendees of 12-step programs from six U.S. states participated in one of two focus groups on Zoom platform in August 2021 in which their experiences of attending online versus in-person meetings were explored. Respondents praised the accessibility and convenience of online meetings, and the ability to interact with members from different geographic locations. However, they noted the loss of intensive social support found at in-person meetings and technological/procedural challenges that remain unsolved online.

There are a small number of MSW and BSW programs in the U.S. that have specialized tracks to train social workers to work with Spanish-speaking clients. This qualitative focus group study reports on the experiences of 25 students who participated in a new English-Spanish dual-language component in the final year of an MSW program in a Northeastern U.S. city. Themes that emerged include how the interactive dual-language nature of the class increased students’ effectiveness and confidence to work with Spanish-speaking clients, and how the class empowered Latinx students and served as a support system for them. Challenges identified include difficulties integrating the dual-language classes with the students’ field experiences and problems engendered by varying Spanish-language proficiency levels of the students.

Over 5800 licensed social workers in 13 U.S. states responded to questions in an online survey regarding their use of mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services during different periods of their lives. As many as 69% of respondents reported ever having accessed mental health treatment, with only 6% having utilized SUD treatment. Among participants reporting a history of mental health problems, 89% utilized mental health treatment. However, only 35% of respondents who indicated a history of substance use problems reported using SUD services, with a much larger proportion of this cohort (84%) reporting use of mental health services.