What is Re-Traumatization

To start with identifying an emerging issue, the first part of the chapter will outline problems of abuse survivors related to trauma or those that appear to be unrelated in the first place but make effects of the traumatic experience harder to handle. Secondly, the chapter will explore barriers to mental health practitioners responding to domestic violence and abuse cases adequately. Thirdly, the focus will be on elaborating practices and principles that can apply in the mental health institutions to recognize the actual realities and needs of abuse survivors and prevent re-traumatization by using trauma-informed care. Finally, in the final part, the authors argue about whether it is reasonable to call for the shift from the medical view in reducing stigma around mental health problems to promote environmental and interpersonal explanations rather than biomedical. In line with the overall statistics on the dominant pattern of violence against women, this chapter will mainly focus on gender-specific mental health and abuse aspects.