Therapist's Emotional Survival

Sexually abused and traumatized patients need therapists to understand their pain. Therapists must be able to handle their own baggage (rescue fantasies, for instance) and to process their own feelings on a daily basis in order to contain and use them.

Stuart D. Perlman, Ph.D., is in private practice in West Los Angeles, and a training analyst and member of the Board of Directors at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Dr. Perlman received Ph.D.s from UCLA in Clinical Psychology, and in Psychoanalysis at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, and was faculty at both. Dr. Perlman is widely published on the topics of trauma and sexual abuse, domestic violence, countertransference, and managing stress.