See no evil,hear no evil,speak no evil: assessing complex trauma in young children

Complex trauma generally refers to a child's exposure to multiple traumatic events often within the context of an interpersonal relationship. Childhood traumatic events are commonplace and can have significant implications for physical and mental health. However, traumatic events are often not assessed by clinicians involved in their care. This paper outlines an approach to assessing complex trauma in young children in clinical settings. This approach involves an initial interview, an assessment of traumatic events and trauma symptoms in the child, an assessment of the parent–child interaction, an understanding of the child's functioning in multiple settings, and an assessment of parental trauma where relevant. Complex trauma takes time to assess and is dependent on the parent's ability to recognise and acknowledge the effect trauma has had. The paper concludes with some of the challenges when assessing complex trauma in young children in clinical settings.     

The social adaptation of multiple sclerosis patients 1

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Puzzachera, 2013), there were approximately 1.47 million arrests of juveniles in the United States reported in 2011, including 68,150 serious violent crimes and 190,000 simple assaults. These data demonstrate that violent crimes are a significant national issue. Past studies have indicated that court-involved and delinquent adolescents frequently report a history of trauma symptoms and exposure to violence. The goal of this article is to present a framework for practice with court-involved youth that reflects the intersection of literature on adolescent development, trauma, and court-involved youth. Improving our understanding of the influence that trauma has on court-involved adolescents will support our ability to better understand the needs of this population in terms of treatment and crime prevention. This article presents a trauma-specific context for addressing the needs of court-involved youth from developmental, neurobiological, and trauma informed perspectives. One of the central components of this article is the inclusion of the TARGET model, a research-informed exemplar for the treatment of adjudicated adolescents who have histories of trauma. A review of the literature is followed by the presentation of a case composite vignette that exemplifies the need for a trauma-informed approach to working with court-involved adolescents.     

Parents Beyond Borders: A Social Group Work Curriculum for Supporting Immigrant Parents and Building Solidarity

Parents Beyond Borders, a curriculum first implemented in 2008 as part of The Center for Family Life's ParentShip Program, encourages group members to create a shared narrative about their traumatic immigration experiences. The result is twofold. First, immigrant parents gain a more assertive and poignant voice to communicate with family and others in their lives when sharing their family's acculturation experience. Second, because social group work promotes recognition of collective trauma due to the community's experience of marginalization, it improves members' group self-concept and empowers them to take action and advocate for themselves.     

Towards a Model of Working Groups

No abstract available for this article.     

Trauma and health risk behaviors in people with severe mental illness

The current study tests the association between a composite measure of unsafe sex and sharing syringes for drug use with six of the more common lifetime traumatic/stressful events in 421 community mental health clients with severe mental illness (SMI) while controlling for psychiatric symptoms and related problems. A small but significant proportion of respondents said they had injected drugs with a shared needle in their lifetime (30, 7.2%), and a much larger proportion of respondents had engaged in unprotected sex (165, 39.2%). Unprotected sex and needle sharing were significantly correlated (Spearman’s rho = .20, p < .01). Frequency of lifetime traumatic events that occurred at least once was reported by one third to three quarters of clients depending on type of trauma. Regression analysis revealed that substance abuse and lifetime homelessness were significantly correlated with health risk behaviors. Practitioners need to be continuously vigilant to comorbid substance use and the housing needs of people with SMI. Limitations of the study include its cross-sectional design.     

HIV and the Cycle of Trauma in Gay Men

Summary

Forged within the sociocultural context of the collective trauma of AIDS, HIV prevention efforts became rigid, focusing almost exclusively on patient education as risk reduction. However, while some people have not been able to incorporate risk reduction into their behavioral patterns, others have indeed returned to high-risk behavior after a period of reduced risk as evidenced by the “Bareback” movement. HIV prevention education has overlooked the effect of oppression and sexual trauma on the lives of gay men, and the impact of these phenomena on the gay male's interest in, and ability to, negotiate safer sex. Sexual trauma has been shown to have a direct effect on HIV risk and seropositivity. Additionally, as sexual trauma (often in the form of homophobia) and HIV infection have numerous parallels, the gay man may have analogous ways of relating to, processing and dealing with the two phenomena. Case histories are offered to illustrate how the relationship between HIV and sexual trauma may be examined in an effort to enhance the self-esteem and self-concept of the gay man, and thereby offer greater possibilities for him to protect himself.     

Women’s experiences of birth trauma: A scoping review

BackgroundA high number of Australian women report experiencing traumatic birth events. Despite high incidence and potential wide spread and long-lasting effects, birth trauma is poorly recognised and insufficiently treated. Birth trauma can trigger ongoing psychosocial symptoms for women, including anxiety, tokophobia, bonding difficulties, relationship issues and PTSD. Additionally, women’s future fertility choices can be inhibited by birth trauma.AimTo summarize the existing literature to provide insight into women’s experiences of birth trauma unrelated to a specific pre-existing obstetric or contextual factor.MethodsThe review follows 5 stages of Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. 7 databases were searched using indexed terms and boolen operators. Data searching identified 1354 records, 5 studies met inclusion criteria.FindingsThree key themes emerged; (1) health care providers and the maternity care system. (2) Women’s sense of knowing and control. (3) Support.DiscussionContinuity of carer creates the foundations for facilitative interactions between care provider and woman which increases the likelihood of a positive birth experience. Women are able to gain a sense of feeling informed and being in control when empowering and individualized care is offered. Functional social supports and forms of debriefing promotes psychological processing and can enable post traumatic growth.ConclusionExisting literature highlights how birth trauma is strongly influenced by negative health care provider interactions and dysfunctional operation of the maternity care system. A lack of education and support limited informed decision-making, resulting in feelings of losing control and powerlessness which contributes to women’s trauma. Insufficient support further compounds women’s experiences.     

The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics: An Interview with Bruce Perry

In this interview with Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, Senior Fellow of The Child Trauma Academy, Laurie MacKinnon discusses with Dr Perry developmental trauma and the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics, an approach to clinical problem solving that utilises a developmental lens and incorporates advances in neurobiological development. Dr Perry gives his perspective on the causal connection between childhood abuse and later psychiatric diagnosis, the child's contact with a violent parent post‐separation, the importance of interventions that address the organisation and functioning of lower parts of the brain and his perspective on the use and limitations of psychotropic medications, cognitive behaviour therapy and family therapy.     

To Christchurch with Love: Family,Neighbourhood and Community Responses to Earthquake‐Related Trauma

What follows is a response from far away to a city, its citizens and professional colleagues ravaged by a series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks in 2010. It was an attempt to offer stories that could be easily circulated around professional circles and the populace. These might be considered to be ‘teaching tales’, which the author hoped would implicate community responses to what could be regarded as individual problems.     

After the accident: Survivors' perceptions of recovery following road trauma

Road accidents affect thousands of lives each year in Australia. This article discusses findings from three years of research into survivors of major road trauma. The research aimed to examine how survivors of road trauma understood their own experiences of recovery, after sustaining serious orthopaedic injuries and undergoing rehabilitation at a Victorian rehabilitation centre. Seventy-nine respondents completed a self-administered survey and 24 of these respondents then participated in in-depth telephone interviews. Using an ecological framework, the research focused on psychosocial and subjective factors in recovery. The qualitative aspects of recovery are presented - the analysis of perceptions of trauma, recovery, recovery resources and coping in the future. Four main themes of recovery are identified - finding a new fit, the privacy of suffering, anticipatory coping and survivor pride. These themes highlight the complexity of the recovery process.