Healing Together: A Couple's Guide to Coping with Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress

After a traumatic experience, we are told time and time again to take care of ourselves and reach out to the people we love. But what happens when you reach out and your partner can't reach back? This book is for people in relationships where either partner has faced trauma in any of its forms: violence, natural disasters, war, life-threatening accidents, crime, health problems, or loss of a loved one.

One or both partners can use Healing Together to recover from trauma or help their partner recover by understanding the impact of trauma, learning to communicate their needs, managing anger, dealing with traumatic memories, recapturing lost intimacy, and recognizing their resiliency as a couple. The practical, step-by-step program presented in this guide is inspired and informed by the authors' clinical experiences with patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and their work with firefighters and their partners in the aftermath of 9/11. In the wake of tragedy, this book can help you build a resilient relationship and move forward with compassion, hope, and love.

Healing Together is a beautiful book… an invaluable resource that will help couples face their traumas together.
-Sue Johnson, Ph.D., professor of psychology at University of Ottawa and author of Hold Me Tight

When one or both partners in a relationship experience a major traumatic event, the strain can really put the relationship in jeopardy; Healing Together offers couples simple techniques for communicating, regaining trust, and supporting one another through the process of trauma recovery.

Suzanne B. Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP, is a psychologist who has worked with couples and with trauma for over twenty-five years. She is adjunct professor in the clinical doctoral program of Long Island University and is on the faculty of the postdoctoral programs of the Derner Institute of Adelphi University, NY, and the Suffolk Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, NY. She has published in the trauma field, trained professionals, and provided direct service to help civilians and uniformed responders cope with trauma. She and Dianne Kane created Couples Connection, a program used to help more than 400 firefighter couples recover after 9/11. She is co-editor of Public Mental Health Service Delivery Protocols: Group Interventions for Disaster Preparedness and Response. She is also in private practice in Northport, NY.

Dianne Kane, DSW, CGP, is a clinical social worker who has been involved in the development and delivery of employee assistance and trauma intervention services to uniformed personnel in the New York City area since 1994. She is currently assistant director of the counseling unit serving the Fire Department of New York City and, in that capacity, has been instrumental in the post-9/11 recovery effort for a workforce of over 13,000 personnel. She and Suzanne Phillips worked with over 400 FDNY couples assisting in their recovery from trauma. Kane has been on the faculty of Hunter College School of Social Work since 1988. She is coauthor of FDNY Crisis Counseling: Innovative Response to Firefighters, Families, and Communities.