Trauma And Its Wake The Study And Treatment Of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Published in the year 1985, Trauma and its Wake is a valuable contribution to the field of Counseling and School Psychology.

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1987. Trauma and Its Wake, Volume II: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Theory, Research, and Treatment is the eighth book in the Psychosocial Stress Book Series. The purpose of the Series is to develop and publish books that in some way make a significant contribution to the understanding and management of the psychosocial stress reaction paradigm. The books are designed to advance the work of clinicians, researchers, and other professionals involved in the varied aspects of human services. The primary readership of this Series includes those practitioners, scholars, and their students who are committed to this purpose. The origin of this current book can be traced to Volume #4 in the Series, Trauma and Its Wake: The Study and Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, edited by Charles R. Figley. This was the first attempt to generalize research and clinical findings among a wide variety of traumatic or catastrophic events towards a generalized view of traumatic and post-traumatic stress reactions. Chapters focused on the immediate and long-term psychosocial consequences of exposure to one of many types of catastrophic events: war, rape, natural disasters, incest. Other chapters focused on effective methods of treating or preventing stress reactions or disorders. It is the first in a series of books that will review the latest innovations in theory, research, and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), caused by a wide variety of stressful life events. The book you are reading is the second of this series of annually published volumes on PTSD within the Book Series.

Despite the growing interest in the role of psychological trauma in the genesis of psychiatric disorders, few volumes have addressed these issues from a multidisciplinary and international perspective. Given the complexity of reslience and posttraumatic disorder, and given ongoing trauma and violence in many parts of the world, it is crucial to apply such perspectives to review existing knowledge in the field and provide directions for future research. This book has a broad scope. A key focus is PTSD, because of its clinical and health importance, its obvious link with trauma, and its interest for many clinicians and researchers. However, the book also examines resilience and a range of mental health consequences of trauma, because it has become increasingly clear that not all individuals react to trauma in the same way. It is important for mental health professionals to be aware of the broad range of potential responses to trauma, as well as of relevant evidence-based treatments. The book includes chapters that address a wide range of topics on trauma-related disorders, including nosology and classification, epidemiology, neurobiology, pharmacotherapy, and psychotherapy. Each chapter comprises a critical review of the existing literature, aimed at being useful for the practitioner. This is followed by selected commentaries from other authorities on the topic, representing diverse geographical locations and points of view, who refine some of the perspectives offered in the review, provide alternative views, or suggest important areas of future work.

In recent years, considerable research, as well as clinical guidelines based on study findings, has been published on the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A gap remains, however, between the controlled environments and protocols used in intervention research and the more complex and often imperfect settings and situations that clinicians must navigate in daily practice. Moreover, clinicians routinely see patients whose comorbid substance abuse, self-destructive behavior, or medical illness would likely exclude them from research studies. In short, although the extensive literature is certainly helpful in articulating the various treatment modalities available to clinicians, the strength of the evidence for the efficacy of the treatments, and the recommendations and personal preferences of experts, the literature does not address the real-life dilemmas that clinicians face in attempting to treat trauma survivors. What is needed is a way to bridge the gap between research and practice -- to "translate" study findings into everyday clinical realities. Treating Trauma Survivors With PTSD answers that need. Its authors, experienced researchers and clinicians who are at the forefront of conceptual discourse on trauma and PTSD, are uniquely qualified to offer guidance on these issues. Among the specific topics covered are the following: Diagnosis and assessment of and treatment planning for trauma survivors with PTSD, including clinical presentations related to trauma exposure and PTSD and the implications of comorbid symptoms and disorders Treatment matching in clinical practice -- how treatment outcome findings can be used to develop profiles for predicting which patients are most likely to respond to which treatments Medications useful in the treatment of PTSD and the strength of the empirical evidence for their efficacy Trauma in children and the efficacy of various treatments, including a discussion of how treatment for children differs from that for adults Assessment and treatment of multiply traumatized patients -- those with both recent trauma and a history of childhood trauma or abuse Treatment of trauma survivors in the acute aftermath of traumatic events, including a review of some of the exciting developments in the field regarding risk factors (e.g., normal vs. pathological coping responses) that influence which individuals are most likely to develop PTSD after such events. These topics have never been more relevant than now, in the wake of the attacks that shook our country on September 11, 2001. It is the authors' hope that by reading this book, mental health practitioners will gain more confidence in applying the specialized techniques described in empirical studies to their own practices and clinical realities.

Debate surrounds the significance of stressful events in determining the nature and course of mental illness. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the focus of psychiatry shifted to neurobiological causes of illness thereby reducing the importance of the research of stress and trauma as major causes of disorders. With the classification of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the theory of traumatic exposure as a major etiological agent of psychiatric symptoms was reasserted. In the twenty years following the diagnosis of PTSD, a large amount of data has been collected and this research has presented some important challenges to the mental health field. It is now clear that PTSD is a serious public health problem, yet this disorder is not the inevitable outcome of trauma. An important development in the field of traumatology has been the recent findings pertaining to the biology of trauma and PTSD. The demonstration of a distinct set of biological models correlating with the symptoms of the disorder has been a critical validation of the concept of PTSD. Also, this evidence has lead the field towards pharmacological treatment of this disorder. The final sections of this volume research the rationale for medical intervention as well s non-biological treatment of trauma and PTSD through cognitive and behavioral therapy. For a section of psychiatric medicine that has undergone recent significant change, Psychological Trauma addresses these advances in a critical and thorough approach. The practicing physician will find this volume an indispensable addition to the existing literature.

Mapping Trauma and Its Wake is a compilation of autobiographic essays by seventeen of the field's pioneers, each of whom has been recognized for his or her contributions by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Each author discusses how he or she first got interested in the field, what each feels are his or her greatest achievements, and where the discipline might - and should - go from here. This impressive collection of essays by internationally-renowned specialists is destined to become a classic of traumatology literature. It is a text that will provide future mental health professionals with a window into the early years of this rapidly expanding field.