Luise Reddemann - Who You Were Before Trauma: The Healing Power of Imagination for Trauma Survivors

About the Authors

Dr. Luise Reddemann, MD, is a trained neurologist and specialist in psychotherapeutic medicine as well as a psychoanalyst. She is the creator of psychodynamic imaginative trauma therapy (PITT) for the treatment of complex disorders stemming from traumatic experiences. She holds an honorary professorship for psychotraumatology and psychological medicine at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. For more than thirty years, Dr. Reddemann has been involved with treating trauma patients and the effects of their traumatic experiences. From 1985 to 2003 she was head of the clinic for psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic medicine of the Protestant Hospital in Bielefeld, Germany.

Susanne Lcke is an art therapist at the clinic for psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic medicine of the Protestant Clinic Bethel in Bielefeld, Germany. In addition, she has been active in private practice for many years. Lcke is also the head of the Bielefeld Institute for Art Therapy (bik), which provides advanced training courses in art-therapy methods for trauma therapy.

Dr. Cornelia Appel-Ramb is a psychotherapist working in pediatric and adolescent medicine at the Mnster University Hospital in Germany.

Figure 1: The Anger Ball

Figure 2: The Light Coil

Figure 3: The Light Spot

Figure 4: Ball of Light

Figure 5: The Wishing Tree

Figure 6: The Nest

Figure 7: The Tree

Figure 8: A Rug for the Consolation Space

Figure 10: A Stable Frame for Motion Impulses

Figure 9: Eagle, Owl, and Butterfly

Figure 11: A Stable Frame for a Symbol

Figure 12: Step 1: Creating a Stable Frame for a Flashback

Figure 13: Step 2: Creating a Cover Page of Good Wishes

Figure 14: Step 3: The Cover

Figure 15: The Archive Room (seen from outside the closed triptych)

Figure 16: The Archive Room (seen from inside the opened triptych)

Figure 17: A loving dwarf mother for the baby

Figure 18: A hollow tree trunk for the five-year-old

Figure 19: The idealized inner parents

Figure 20: The idealized pediatrician for the nine-year-old

Figure 21: Visit to the seventeen-year-old

Figure 22: Her first love

Figure 23: A wall painting

Figure 24: The black room

Figure 25: Leaving the place of traumatization

Figure 26: A mountain hut

Figure 27: Freedom and self-determination