Trauma Blog
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A Mother’s Pain: Vicarious Traumatic Stress After Race-Related Violence
Date posted: 09/9/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
Have you ever wondered how people are impacted by the mass publicization of race-related violence? Our study found that one particular group may be at risk for vicarious trauma, while another may experience a decrease in trauma symptoms. Learn more in our blog.
Climate change and media messaging: What is a non-scary way of raising awareness about the end of civilization?
StressPoints
Date posted: 09/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
In early September, following a record summer of global warming, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Gutierrez, declared in a speech that the ‘climate breakdown had begun’ and urged global leaders to adopt radical solutions to, ‘’ avoid the worst of climate chaos.” This warning comes as no surprise to those who carefully monitor the news on climate change, but to others, such information can be fear- and anxiety-inducing.
Clinician's Corner: Behavioral health in the fire service
StressPoints
Date posted: 09/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
Communities around the globe depend on firefighters. We rely on them for safety, crisis and medical intervention, and our general well-being. Firefighters are regularly exposed to critical and emergency situations (e.g., fires, natural disasters, crime scenes, medical emergencies), and thus represent a unique and resilient population faced with chronic stress and intense physical demands (Bowers et al., 2020). Firefighters operate in contexts of often chronic occupational stress, including sleep disturbance, and significant physical as well as emotional demands. Yet, research on firefighter behavioral health is in relatively early stages of development. Fire service agencies are just beginning to understand the implications of their work on the behavioral health of firefighters and their families (e.g., Zegel et al., in press).
Clinician's Corner: Meeting the challenges of organizational stress: Biocratic organizations and creating presence
StressPoints
Date posted: 09/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
In 2022, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report about workplace mental health and wellbeing. Many of you will not be surprised to learn that in a survey of 1,500 U.S. adult workers across for profit, non-profit and government sectors, 76% of respondents reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, and 84% reported at least one workplace factor that had a negative impact on their mental health [1]. This means that in every mental health, healthcare and social service setting, clinicians must deal with the effects of workplace stress on their clients, while they are also trying to manage similar problems themselves. Not surprisingly, the report cites research suggesting there are five workplace attributes most predictive of whether workers refer to their organization’s culture as “toxic”: disrespect, noninclusivity, and unethical, cutthroat, or abusive behavior [2].
Developmental Traumatology: On holding and being held: Therapists, traumatized youth and the pandemic
StressPoints
Date posted: 09/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
Many children who have suffered traumas early in their lives have also experienced profound losses of relationships. They may have lost or been separated from family members, experienced war and displacement, and/or lived in multiple placements. Because children with developmental trauma can show difficulties with cognition, emotional regulation and behavioral control (Spinnzola et al., 2021), they often cannot articulate their struggles, instead demonstrating them through behavioral responses. When children with histories of developmental trauma and loss enter treatment, the therapist must create an environment that offers protection and containment so that the child feels safe enough and can regulate sufficiently to explore thoughts, feelings and memories. Creating that therapeutic space is not always easy.
Student Perspectives: Recent advances in short-term, evidence-based PTSD treatments
StressPoints
Date posted: 09/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
The gold-standard evidence-based treatments for PTSD (Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy) and other emerging treatments (i.e., EMDR, ACT for PTSD) are typically implemented in 60 to 90 minute sessions for approximately 12 sessions. These treatments are considered highly effective, and it is often recognized that dropout rates (as well as wait-lists for these services) are high. That said, advances in short-term, evidence-based PTSD treatments are helping to combat some of the potential barriers those with PTSD face in accessing and completing treatment. Specifically, this article highlights two brief PTSD treatments implemented in primary care settings: written exposure therapy, and prolonged exposure for primary care. While the traditional model of outpatient trauma treatment may be feasible for some, expanding the types of settings and treatments, without compromising on efficacy, helps make PTSD treatment more widely accessible.
Biological perspectives: Neurocognitive impairments among individuals with PTSD: A brief review of current advances and insights
StressPoints
Date posted: 06/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves four main symptom clusters, namely (i) intrusion, (ii) avoidance, (iii) negative cognition and emotion, and (iv) hyperarousal. Although focus has traditionally been on emotional symptoms, there is an increasing interest in neurocognitive impairments that are often found among individuals with PTSD. It is important to recognize these impairments associated with PTSD, as neurocognitive impairments have direct implications for recovery, adequate daily life function, and the duration and severity of the disorder (Bisson Desrochers et al., 2021).
Clinician’s corner: An introduction to medical trauma
StressPoints
Date posted: 06/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the negative psychosocial impacts of various medical events, which has led to an increased attention on medical trauma. While the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to this, there has been research over the last few decades seeking to understand potentially traumatic medical events and their outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Medical trauma includes potentially traumatic events related to life-altering or life-threatening medical events, such as pain, injury, serious illness, medical procedures or other frightening treatment experiences.
Clinician’s corner: STARS: An ecological blueprint for addressing racial stress in trauma-informed practice in schools
StressPoints
Date posted: 06/28/2023
Topic: Clinical Issues and Treatment
In a world where Black youth are shot for something as harmless and accidental as arriving at the wrong address to pick up their younger siblings, it becomes increasingly evident that we often fail to acknowledge the profound impact of racial stress and trauma.
Ralph Yarl’s story is just one among far too many where activities like walking, playing, knocking on the wrong door or simply
existing while being Black can have fatal consequences (Zaru & Negussie, 2023). While we have become more accustomed to discussing stories like Ralph's, or to seeing them dominate the U.S. news cycle for days on end, we have yet to fully come to terms with the fact that the reach of racial stress and trauma extends far beyond the confines of direct involvement in a traumatic event. Merely witnessing systemic racism and oppression weighs heavily on our youth, akin to an unspoken toll or what one young person, who participated in our teams’ intervention (i.e., TRANSFORM; Lau Johnson, Saleem, Pickens & Langley, 2021) designed to heal racial stress and trauma, refers to as an invisible burden: “I knew it was there, but I didn't know that it had a specific name to it. Like putting a name to a face, I guess that kind of helped too.” What this teen describes—the ability to articulate the experience they have always felt and known to be true—is what it looks like to provide youth with the necessary tools to address racial stress and trauma. It is about the transformative process of making the invisible visible.