Bringing Together Clinicians and Researchers From Around the World to Advocate for the Field of Traumatic Stress.
Healing Trauma Together
The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies is dedicated to sharing information about the effects of trauma and the discovery and dissemination of knowledge about policy, program and service initiatives that seek to reduce traumatic stressors and their immediate and long-term consequences. ISTSS is an international interdisciplinary professional organization that promotes advancement and exchange of knowledge about traumatic stress.
Registration is Now Open!
Join us in Boston on September 25-28, 2024 for the ISTSS 40th Annual Meeting. The ISTSS Annual Meeting provides a forum for the dissemination of theoretical work, scientific research, and evidence-based clinical approaches in traumatic stress studies.
Conversations and Consultations
Our Conversations and Consultation series is a members-only series that provides members with the opportunity to exchange valuable insight and advice with subject-matter experts, mentors, and/or colleagues in the trauma field. Each session is facilitated by one or more experts and presented to ISTSS members as a free membership benefit. Check out past sessions on industry careers, part-time private practice, and our most recent session on international collaboration.
Grow Your Professional Network by Volunteering with ISTSS
Volunteers play an integral role in ISTSS' day-to-day activities and form a broad professional network. Interested in adding an ISTSS volunteer position to your CV?
Media matters: Just like me: Who engages with mass violence media? – Daniel P. Relihan, PhD
The proliferation of ubiquitous modern media technologies and the 24-hour news cycle allows people to engage with events anywhere in the world as they unfold. In the context of violent conflict, war and disaster, such instantaneous and vivid immersion into global events transmits traumatic experiences to geographically distant populations. For example, longitudinal research using probability-based U.S. nationally representative samples has shown that longer exposure to media coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (Silver et al., 2002), Iraq war (Silver et al., 2013), Boston Marathon bombings (Holman et al., 2013) and Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre (Thompson et al., 2019), was associated with greater acute and post-traumatic stress. Exposure to terrorism and war media is also prospectively associated with worse physical health years later (Holman & Silver, 2011; Holman et al., 2008; Silver et al., 2013). Today, disturbing images and videos of live military action and bloodied and dead civilians–including children–from the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza inundate global media. Given the potential for news coverage to spread distress beyond borders, it is important to understand who is most vulnerable to engaging with such media to mitigate its negative psychological impacts by informing the public’s media consumption habits.
Greetings from the Editor – Anka A. Vujanovic, PhD
As 2023 draws to a close, I hope this issue finds you all safe and well, surrounded by loved ones, and engaged in meaningful work or meaningful rest. The past year has continued to challenge us, as humans and as those who dedicate our professional lives to helping trauma survivors recover.
Nothing in my life – Keren Neeman, PhD
Nothing in my life prepared me to this moment that I had no words.
Not the fact that I am the only child of Holocaust survivors that lost their entire families, a grandchild to a woman that walked in the Death March, was attacked by murderous dogs and that I am the daughter of parents that were coping emotionally throughout their life
Not the fact that I celebrated my first birthday in a shelter during the Yom Kippur war
Not the fact that I grew up in Israel, a country that soldiers, weapons, bombs, explosions and rockets are part of our everyday life.