Trauma Blog

Clinician's Corner: Recognizing Traumatic Brain Injury Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Abuse
StressPoints
Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have been called the signature injury suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been singled out as a risk factor for the development of dementing disease among world-class athletes.
 

Implementing PE During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Tips and Adaptations
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new stressors and increased the potential for traumatic exposures. Home-based clinical videoconferencing allows patients to receive effective PTSD treatment that has been adapted for safe delivery during the pandemic. Clinical considerations when providing prolonged exposure therapy and suggestions for flexible adaptation are discussed. 

Implementing PE During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Tips and Adaptations
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new stressors and increased the potential for traumatic exposures. Home-based clinical videoconferencing allows patients to receive effective PTSD treatment that has been adapted for safe delivery during the pandemic. Clinical considerations when providing prolonged exposure therapy and suggestions for flexible adaptation are discussed. 

How Patterns of Victimization Among LGBTQ Individuals Impact Mental and Physical Health
This study explored different patterns of victimization among LGBTQ individuals and the relationship to mental and physical health outcomes. Findings suggested polyvictimization was an important risk factor and that there is a diversity among LGBTQ individuals with regard to victimization classes and across different gender identities.  

Understanding Economic Impacts of Policies that Further Traumatize Immigrant Children
Approximately 33 million children migrate from one country to another each year and an estimated 17 million of whom were displaced due to conflict and violence (UNICEF, 2020). In the United States (U.S.), media attention has focused primarily on the tens of thousands of children migrating from Central America. Child migration across the southern border of the U.S. is not a recent phenomenon, but many recent policy changes and executive orders may have lasting impacts on our system of immigration and the children caught in the middle. To assess the potential economic impact of recent immigration policy changes, we conducted a pilot study through a collaboration through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) with investigators from the University of Maryland, Boston College, and Duke University. 

Enhancing Social Support May Improve Cognitive Processing Therapy Outcomes in Telemedicine for PTSD
Telehealth-based delivery of gold-standard posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatments such as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; Resick et al., 2017) has been shown to be no less effective than in-person delivery of care (Morland et al., 2014, 2015). Yet providers may be curious about what might improve outcomes. Malleable characteristics, such as the amount of social support an individual perceives they have, are of special interest. Although some research has shown social support can encourage greater reductions in PTSD symptoms (Price et al., 2018), individuals living in rural areas might have important differences. Therefore, we set out to evaluate whether pre-existing perceived social support could enhance the effects of CPT for rural American military veterans participating in a pragmatic randomized effectiveness trial of telehealth-based collaborative care for PTSD (Fortney et al., 2015).

ISTSS 2019: Reflections from A Global Travel Award Recipient Psychology and Boston: Sparking a New Flame
This past November, I had a unique opportunity of presenting my abstract at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) 35th Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. The conference theme was “Trauma, Recovery, and Resilience: Charting a Course Forward.” My abstract was titled “Validation of the Screen for Children Anxiety and Related Emotional Disorders-Revised Version (SCARED-R) for Use in Rwanda.”

Trauma and World Literature: On Not Being Able to Be There in this Time of Pandemic
StressPoints
Social distancing often denies people the ability to comfort, touch or even just sit with a loved one—not even for the last time. It is profoundly difficult to resist such vital human contact. As we contemplate this dilemma, there is a familiar story from Greek mythology about giving in to the ache for connection which is worth bringing to mind.