Trauma Blog

Developmental Traumatology: Trauma and Fetal Alcohol Exposure: Neurodevelopmental ‎Implications
StressPoints
As awareness of how childhood trauma affects neurodevelopment grows, questions arise about symptom complexity and how neurodevelopment is affected by other comorbid conditions. Youth exposed to toxic stress from early, severe and/or chronic maltreatment can show alterations in brain structure and connectivity that impact cognition, emotion regulation and stress reactivity (Teicher & Samson, 2016). However, neurodevelopment is also influenced by genetics and other types of adversity, including in utero exposure to substances. As child maltreatment co-occurs frequently with parental substance use and prenatal alcohol exposure, understanding the relationship between the two is important to differential diagnosis and treatment.

Biological Perspectives: Psychedelic Drugs for the Treatment of Trauma-Related Disorders
StressPoints
Psychedelic drugs, including but not limited to psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine (MDMA), peyote and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), are currently classified by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as Schedule 1 controlled substances. This implies that there is no current medical use and there exists a high potential for abuse (DEA, 2021). However, LSD has been of interest to molecular psychiatry for the past 70 years, as its chemical structure is similar to serotonin (5-HT; Tupper et al., 2015). Recently, there has been increased attention on the potential for psychedelic drug treatment of various neuropsychiatric syndromes. Specifically, a growing body of literature suggests utility in the context of trauma- and stressor-related disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Mithoefer et al., 2016). 

President’s Message
As I was reading Dr. Debra Kaysen’s March 2020 President’s Message to find inspiration, it became quickly evident that what she wrote last year still rings true today, one full year later: “We are in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic that has upended most of our lives in ways that six [18, now] months ago would have been impossible to fathom.” However, while many things have remained the same, others have also significantly changed over the past year. I would therefore like to start this March 2021 message by amending Dr. Kaysen’s message and reminding us all that “we are in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic that has [taught us how to solve problems in creative and ingenious ways that 12] months ago would have been impossible to fathom.”

President's Message
I hope everyone is spending as nice a summer as you can despite the ongoing health crisis. I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of having a diverse organization and to share a few steps that ISTSS has taken toward diversifying our membership in support of Strategic Goal 2 (“ISTSS promotes professional, demographic, cultural and geographic diversity and inclusivity among our membership”). As someone born in France from Vietnamese refugee parents, who has lived 10 years in the U.S., and who happens to think (and sometimes dream) in four different languages, I deeply value diversity, not only to promote inclusivity and tolerance, but also as a central tenet of scientific excellence. However, despite all this, I found myself struggling greatly when writing this column on diversity, as this brings up conflicting feelings in me.

Research Methods: Collaborating Globally to Make Traumatic Stress Research Data More ‎‎“FAIR”
StressPoints
Editor’s Note: ISTSS is a founding partner in the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress

The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data stewardship state that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR; Wilkinson et al 2016). In summary, the principles state that researchers should be able to find relevant data and datasets and have a clear means to gain (or request) access to those data, that data should be readable across various software systems (now and in the future), and that we should have enough information about specific variables and data collection methods to allow us to reuse those data. These principles are part of the growing global movement toward a more open and transparent science, across disciplines from astronomy to the social sciences. Being “FAIR” is not an all-or-nothing proposition; rather, FAIRness is a continuum. Making traumatic stress research data more FAIR can promote better science, enhance understanding of trauma impact and recovery, and ultimately benefit trauma-exposed individuals and communities around the world (Kassam-Adams & Olff, 2020). Recognizing the importance of these issues, the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress has undertaken FAIR data as its fifth “theme.”

SIG Spotlight: Military Women and Mental Health: Risk Factors and Implications for ‎Treatment
StressPoints
It has been a ground-breaking year for women serving in the military. In the U.S., the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego welcomed its first female platoon (Athey, 2020) and President Biden appointed two female generals to lead Transportation and Southern Command (Hoffman & Starr, 2021). Outside of the U.S., Officer Cadets Chuki Wangmo, Midya Masti and Firushana Thaufeeq were the first women from Bhutan, the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and the Maldives to graduate from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (Forces Net, 2021b). Additionally, Major General Sharon Nesmith became the first female Army Officer in the U.K. to serve at the division level (Forces Net, 2021a). To honor this progress and recognize the mental health needs of women in the military, the ISTSS Military Special Interest Group offers this   brief overview of gender differences in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and treatment within the field of military psychology.

Student Perspectives: Graduating and Interning During COVID-19: What Does the ‎Next Generation of Clinicians Need to Take on This Challenge?‎
StressPoints
With the rapid rollout of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 worldwide, the world can breathe easier. Unfortunately, as this global threat is receding, its impact on mental health is becoming increasingly apparent. The problem is such that some experts speak of an “echo pandemic” (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2020). For example, rates of self-reported depression, anxiety and psychological distress have been steadily rising since the beginning of the pandemic (Dozois, 2020). Unfortunately, though vulnerable people and their families will likely need health care and mental health workers, these professionals also show signs of significant strain (Malvardy et al., 2021; Spoorthy et al., 2020). Specifically, rates of anxiety, depression, sleep disorders and posttraumatic stress are soaring among health care workers (Malvardy et al., 2021).

Trauma and World Literature: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
StressPoints
The plague of COVID-19 is often compared to the influenza epidemic of a hundred years ago. Less often mentioned are commonalities between COVID-19 and the ongoing AIDS epidemic. Perhaps the similarities are not so apparent because now, at least in economically advantaged countries, the risk from AIDS seems restricted to smaller, more marginalized groups of people. In addition, we now have more effective treatment for AIDS than for COVID-19.

Nonetheless, important similarities between the effects of AIDS and what we see in COVID-19 are brought to light in Makkai’s Stonewall Award-winning novel, The Great Believers.