Traumatology

The article relates the history of the Traumatology Certification Program from its beginnings at the laboratory of the Florida State University (FSU) Psychosocial Stress Research Program in 1996, a program that emerged as a response to one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in the United States. Along the way the Program won a prestigious award, stimulated the establishment of the Traumatology Institute at FSU as its home, created the Certified Traumatologist, Field Traumatologist, and Certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist certifications, and established fourteen other teaching institutes nationally and internationally. The Program’s journey from Oklahoma City to Tallahassee to Tampa, and back to Tallahassee, are chronicled along with a description of the Program’s Certification Standards, the courses, and the people who are part of this history. The final section of the paper discusses the importance of maintaining, reviewing, and improving the standards of practice for the field of traumatology, the certification standards that support such practices, and the accreditation standards for teaching institutes that teach the sanctioned courses. As a result there are more assurances that evidence-based best practices are taught with sensitivity to culture, region, nationality, language, and history. Moreover, developing competence in these best practices not only insures the protection of the public, it insures that such standards will permeate all levels of professional education from the training of paraprofessionals and volunteers through the education of graduate and doctoral students.

Although the detection of malingering is a legitimate concern of health professionals, it rarely features in training schedules and attracts little attention in journals of traumatic stress. But the item is raised here because of a specific request from the prosecution to examine the claim of traumatic amnesia raised by the defence against charges of murder and robbery. The request evoked examples from earlier professional practice in prisons and psychiatric units, and led to a search for reliable methods of assessment. The outcome, set within the usual time-constraints imposed by the Courts, resulted in the use of an ad hoc method for the analysis of Police-videotaped interviews. The justification for the method, and the proof of the conclusion lies in the fact that even the most adversarial of lawyers was obliged to accept the opinion and admit to the Court that his client had lied. The findings are presented here, buttressed with appropriate references to the work of leading expert witnesses and researchers, to suggest that malingering in clinical, criminal, and civil matters should receive more priority in textbooks of abnormal psychology and in the training of health professionals.

Ninety-one Canadian therapists (49 women and 42 men, mean age 41 years) working primarily with sex offenders were surveyed to determine the presence of vicarious trauma, identify mitigating variables if present and assess its relationship to burnout. Participants completed a 24-item demographic questionnaire, the Traumatic Stress Institute Belief Scale - Revision L, the Impact of Event Scale, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Contrary to expectations, participants did not exhibit significantly higher degrees of vicarious traumatization than a criterion reference group of mental health professionals. Participants who reported having a venue to address the personal impact of their work were found to be more likely to score lower on the measure of vicarious trauma than those who did not. Other variables theorized to be related to vicarious trauma were not found to be related to scores on the measure assessing vicarious trauma. Twenty four percent of the sample was found to have a moderate to severe stress response to their work with offenders. Twenty three percent of the sample scored in the high range on the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales, hallmarks of professional burnout. High correlations among measures of vicarious trauma and burnout were also found, calling attention to the need to further differentiate the two constructs. Implications regarding the measurement of vicarious trauma and the appropriateness of generalizing the phenomenon to sex offender treatment providers are discussed.

To our knowledge, only one study has examined the relationship between disability compensation and traumatic life events. In this study, researchers did not find a relationship between physical and sexual abuse, and disability compensation. In the present study, we examined 47 men and women in an internal medicine clinic and, using a survey method, explored disability compensation in relationship to traumatic life events and several aspects of participants’ psychiatric histories. Compared with the non-disabled group (n = 27), the disabled group (n = 20) reported a greater number of traumatic experiences; more types of traumatic experiences; and more traumatic experiences associated with fear, helplessness, or horror. While there were strong trends, none of these relationships was statistically significant. In addition, the disabled group reported significantly more psychiatric hospitalizations, panic attacks, flashbacks, and alcohol dependence. While not statistically significant, the strong positive trends between disability compensation and trauma suggest a possible relationship--one that warrants further investigation.

This study evaluated the relationships between an elders’ functional skills, and their use of ecosystemic support and internal coping strategies to buffer a major stressor ’ s potential impacts. McGee’s (1998) Life Span Developmental model was employed in this research of 83 seniors. Seniors with high functional skills and those with very low functional skills did not appear to be as impacted as those seniors whose functional skills had deteriorated slightly and who employed emotion-focused coping to manage the impacts of a major stressor. Ecosystemic support, which included both formal and informal support networks, did not appear to provide an adequate buffer from the stress-related symptoms. The usage of this strategy was noticeably impacted by the deterioration of the size and frequency of contact seniors experience with their ecosystemic support systems. Seniors functional abilities and their use of emotion-focused coping were found to be the significant predictors in estimating an elders’ reactions to a major stressor.