Category Archives: News & conferences

Ouch… and… let’s try again

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Twitter is a fantastic tool to build a prospering (trauma) research community. At least, that’s what I tried to make you believe :-).

The main arguments? It’s an ideal platform for sharing new publications, brainstorming on how to solve difficulties in your research, and finding support.

Two beautiful examples of active communities are #phdchat and #hcsmanz (although the latter is not focused on research per se, it does discuss it).

I received many positive reactions on the post (and on it’s succesor How to start with Twitter when you are a trauma researcher), including a number of people who joined Twitter (yes!). Continue reading →

The first trauma research Tweet chat

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Are you a researcher interested in traumatic stress and recovery? Come join the first trauma research Tweet chat!

It takes place at the end of February, depending on your preferences (cast your vote here!).

This post gives you all the details on how to participate. Continue reading →

Trauma and PTSD researchers should tweet

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Last week, I tried to compile a list of trauma and PTSD experts who are part of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) or affiliated societies. It turned out that we have only a handful of active twitterers, while the societies have thousands of members. At the last annual ISTSS conference in November, we had only two people tweeting.

It’s a missed opportunity. Twitter is a fantastic tool to build a prospering research community (see e.g., Mollett et al., 2011; Reinhardt et al., 2009;). I’ll give you some examples:

While I was searching for tweeters for my list, @raulpacheco started the #myresearch hashtag, asking people to present their research topic or question in about 120 characters. It went viral. Moreover, it was highly informative, entertaining, and instantly led to new connections and exchanges between researchers all over the world. Marc Smith made a beautiful graph of it. Continue reading →

Does intervening early after trauma help children recover?

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In 2012, the blog weekly features a summary or discussion of a recent scientific article on traumatic stress in children. This week: Kramer & Landolt (Dec 2011) about early interventions.

When children are exposed to a single traumatic event such as a car accident, a violent incident, or a disaster, many of them will recover naturally. However, a significant minority has difficulty getting back on track: 10 to 30% of the exposed children develop chronic symptoms, including Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Can we intervene early to help children recover? Systematic reviews on the efficacy of early single interventions in adults have shown either no or even harmful effects so far. In particular psychological debriefing, where survivors are asked to ventilate their emotions, cause concerns. For example, Rose et al. (2009) concluded in their meta-analysis that compulsory psychological debriefing of adults should cease.   Continue reading →

Man’s search for meaning

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On my flight to Melbourne yesterday I re-read Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”. It’s such an impressive book that I would just like to share a number of quotes instead of trying to describe or analyze it. To give you a little bit of background: Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived three years in concentration camps during the Second World War. He wrote this book from both a personal and a professional perspective, and reflects on our attitude toward life’s challenges and opportunities.

Continue reading →