The study explores practitioners’ experiences of working with adolescents with complex interpersonal trauma. Five mental health professionals were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to identify themes related to the research question. Three superordinate themes emerged: “The distance-relationship dynamic”; “The unknown self”; “Practitioners’ presence”. Participants reported the fragility of their relationships with clients, enhanced awareness of their professional and personal identity, and highlighted the importance of meeting their clients as persons. Results are discussed within the literature that considers the role of the person of the therapist to foster therapeutic change. Future research could explore the role of therapeutic distance, the interplay between transference-countertransference and attachment dynamics, and the relevance of practitioners’ playfulness with traumatised youth. Finally, this study proposes a model of use of self as “compassion-in-action” to express practitioners’ ‘response-ability’ to their clients’ trauma as commitment to social justice.

该研究探讨了从业者与患有复杂人际关系创伤的青少年一起工作的经历。通过有目的的雪球抽样招募了五名心理健康专业人员。进行了半结构化的采访，录音和转录。解释性现象学分析被用来确定与研究问题相关的主题。出现了三个上级主题：“距离-关系动态”；“未知的自己”；“从业者的存在”。参与者报告了他们与客户关系的脆弱性，增强了他们对专业和个人身份的认识，并强调了与客户面对面交流的重要性。文献中讨论了结果，这些文献考虑了治疗师个人在促进治疗变化方面的作用。未来的研究可以探索治疗距离的作用、移情-反移情和依恋动态之间的相互作用，以及从业者的嬉戏与受创青年的相关性。最后，本研究提出了一种使用自我作为“行动中的同情”的模型，以表达从业者对其来访者创伤的“反应能力”，作为对社会正义的承诺。