Communications Corner

ISTSS Announcements and Updates

Special Interest Groups
Child Trauma SIG
The Child Trauma SIG will hold its yearly meeting Thursday, October 30, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the ISTSS annual meeting in Chicago. ISTSS members with an interest in childhood trauma are welcome to attend the SIG meeting. On the agenda for discussion are member interests and ideas for member activity, and feedback about the conference and ways to continue to make it relevant and accessible for those with an interest in childhood trauma. At this year's conference, the Child SIG will provide a handout listing all presentations and posters with content specifically relevant to children, adolescents and families. The handout will be available prior to the meeting via the Child SIG listserv, and at the meeting. The SIG has endorsed a number of symposia, and several Child SIG members are presenting at this year's conference on a range of topics related to childhood traumatic stress. For more information, contact Margaret E. Blaustein at mblauste@mindspring.com.

Creative, Body and Energy Therapies SIG
The Creative, Body and Energy Therapies SIG provides a forum for clinicians and researchers interested in expressive and nonverbal treatments for trauma-related disorders. The SIG encourages communication among a broad range of practitioners to stimulate collaborative efforts, joint presentations and constructive dialogue. The role of nonverbal expression and embodiment may be an important avenue for new treatments for PTSD; theoretical and methodological advances have emerged in recent years. Share your ideas with the Creative, Body and Energy Therapies SIG meeting in Chicago during the ISTSS 19th Annual Meeting. For more information, contact David Read Johnson at ptsdcenter@aol.com, or Amber Gray at amber@ecentral.com.

Research Methodology SIG
The Research Methodology Special Interest Group (RM-SIG) will sponsor two presentations at the upcoming ISTSS meeting. The first is a symposium titled "New Assessment Methods and Measures for Early Trauma Survivors," chaired by Josef Ruzek. Presentations will describe new assessment measures and methods for adults or children who are recent trauma survivors. Research presented will focus on medical patients treated in hospital emergency room settings, and their families. The second presentation is a grant-writing workshop, chaired by Karestan C. Koenen. The workshop will include seasoned grant writers, agency representatives and junior scholars with previous success in securing grant support. For more information, contact Dean Lauterbach at dlauterba@emich.edu or Dorie Glover at dglover@mednet. ucla.edu.

Task Force Updates

Diversity Task Force Seeks Focus Group Volunteers
The Diversity Task Force, in conjunction with the Membership Committee, seeks ISTSS members who are interested in participating in a focus group by phone. The focus group will provide feedback concerning diverse members' current experience of ISTSS-how to make ISTSS more hospitable to existing diverse members and how to attract more diverse individuals into ISTSS. Information gathered through the focus group will be used to inform and develop appropriate policies and ongoing membership-related outreach efforts. Diversity here reaches across national boundaries. The focus group conference call will last approximately one hour. For more information about the focus group, or if you would like to participate, contact Elisa Triffleman, Diversity Task Force chair, at elisa.triffleman@yale.edu.

Affiliate Organizations
ISTSS affiliate, the Argentine Society for Psychotrauma, held its third annual meeting in June in Buenos Aires-the Third International Congress for Psychic Trauma and Traumatic Stress.

Presenters from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Spain demonstrated the Ibero-American focus of the organization; but overall, the dozens of speakers, including many ISTSS members, came from various countries on five continents. Proceedings in many of the sessions were simultaneously translated between Spanish and English. The meeting of more than 900 participants featured a full range of topics in the field of trauma, from interventions in natural disasters and methods of working with survivors of torture or sexual victimization, to issues of genocide, combat trauma, trauma and borderline personality, dissociation, child sexual abuse and more. Theoretical discussions of trauma and culture, and of disruptive environments as reflections of social forces in trauma, also added to the stimulating mixture. For more information, visit www.psicotrauma.org.ar. The next Congress will be held June 24-26, 2004.