Turning Symptoms into Allies: Utilization Approaches with Posttraumatic Symptoms

Abstract

Adult patients with symptoms connected to the trauma of childhood sexual abuse often present in therapy with multiple symptoms and life difficulties and offer a challenge to even the most experienced clinician. In this paper, I describe my work with three such patients who were crippled in different ways by symptoms that had proved resistant to years of various therapeutic interventions. In every case, I accepted and utilized these symptoms as positive resources for successful and rapid change. Patients were then taught self-utilization approaches which allowed them to sustain and extend initial improvements. I conclude that the indirect utilization principle introduced by Milton Erickson provides an effective method to use in approaching some of the more persistent patterns of posttraumatic symptomatology related to childhood sexual abuse.