Category Archives: News & conferences

Psychological support after the bus crash in Switzerland

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday was a day of national mourning in Belgium because of a tragic bus accident in Switzerland on Tuesday night. A bus with primary school children and their teachers, returning from a ski trip, had crashed into a tunnel wall near Sion. It caused the loss of 22 children and six adults. All other occupants (24 children) were injured.

It feels needless to say that this accident has a dramatic impact on the Belgian community, including the survivors, their families, their classmates, teachers, neighbors, involved professionals, and fellow citizens. The contrast between the children’s cheerful experiences during a week of skiing and the sudden devastation of lives couldn’t be more pronounced.

Erik de Soir, a Belgian crisis psychologist, provided support to the parents and teachers of the children from the moment the news reached one of the two schools involved. In an interview on the Dutch television on Thursday, he told about his experiences and the strategies for psychological support in the direct aftermath of mass trauma, in line with the current scientific evidence. I was very impressed with the genuine way he described his work and his views. Continue reading →

Next #traumaresearch chat: Posttraumatic Growth

Posted on by
1

In a week (Thursday 15th) the next #traumaresearch Paper Discussion on Twitter will take place. You are very welcome to join this international exchange of ideas on recent studies, either as an ‘observer’ or as an active participant. This edition’s topic will be Posttraumatic Growth, more specifically the systematic review by Myerson and colleagues (2011).

Later this week I’ll post a few reflections on the topic but for now I’ll give you the abstract of the paper as a warming-up exercise :-).

“Stress and trauma research has traditionally focused on negative sequelae of adversity. Recently, research has begun to focus on positive outcomes, specifically posttraumatic growth (PTG) – ‘positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with trauma’ – which emphasizes the transformative potential of one’s experiences with highly stressful events and circumstances. The positive changes of PTG are generally thought to occur in five domains: new possibilities, relating to others, personal strength, appreciation of life, and spiritual change. Continue reading →

Free interactive online training: Supporting the mental health of veterans and families

Posted on by
1

This Thursday, a 14-session training series on diagnosis and treatment of veterans will start. It has an interesting line-up of presenters and explicitly takes families into account. The US based program is accessible for clinicians all over the world. Find your local time for the training here.

The description of From the War Zone to the Home Front:

“One in three U.S. service members returning from Iraq or Afghanistan will experience signs of combat stress, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. Only 50% receive their health care through the VA. Other vets and their families will seek care in community settings by primary care and community mental health clinicians. Continue reading →

Upcoming conferences on trauma and recovery

Posted on by
Reply

A number of interesting conferences take place in the next few months. They all focus on trauma exposure, traumatic stress and mental health. And for three of them submission deadlines are approaching rather quickly… Continue reading →

Pink elephants and trauma recovery

Posted on by
Reply

Don’t think of a pink elephant.

It’s a classic example of how thought suppression works: counterproductively. You will think of a pink elephant. Wegner and colleagues have shown that it is very difficult to suppress a thought. If you try, it’s very likely that you will think about it more than if you don’t.

This problematic nature of mental control doesn’t apply to fancy experimental settings only. It is thought to play an important role in posttraumatic stress symptoms. Survivors who try harder to avoid thoughts about (or images of) a terrifying moment such as a car crash, are more prone to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Avoidance of trauma-related thoughts makes it more difficult to challenge unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma (see the cognitive model by Ehlers & Clark).

Recently, researchers have started to look at the role of thought suppression in children. The first studies show strong relations with posttraumatic stress symptoms  (see also the meta-analysis by Trickey et al that I recently discussed). Understanding which cognitive processes take place in the development of PTSD in children is essential for our design of helpful interventions. Continue reading →