The time is right for an expanded concept of trauma and an encyclopedia to suggest the elements. These folks to the left are attending the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. This is the learned Society of the new field that is about to get broader.
I was the Founding President of the Society and the Founding Editor of its premier journal, the
Journal of Traumatic Stress. So after I left the editorship of that Journal I founded another a few years later. It is now time to consider expanding the concept of trauma and there is no better way than to produce an encyclopedia on the topic.
The production of the encyclopedia (E) comes at a time of growing appreciation for this expanded conceptualization of trauma and at a time in history where interdisciplinarity is appreciated and sought. Out of tragedies in the wake of such trauma as the Virginia Tech shootings, the NYU Story of 9/11, Tulane and Katrinia, and Israel emerge insight, leadership, and invention. These are special issues of Traumatology, the International Journal of Trauma (Sage Publications). Collectively, these autobiographies published in Traumatology led to this Encyclopedia. The published autobiographies were reviewed at least two and often more reviewers blind to authorship.
They were the voices rarely heard among writers in Traumatology. For Christopher Fox, a Virginia Tech computer science professor, he noted in an email that it was one of the most rewarding studies he ever done and reported on (2008). They were written by professors and doctoral students of Sociology, English, Agronomy, Psychology, and a brave reporter.
The essence of E is clarity; thinking more clearly. The development of this Encyclopedia is part of a growing movement in the sciences and social sciences to clarify languages and other barriers to greater understanding.. As a result of the role E and other efforts, if they succeed, will elevate the importance of considering multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration (i.e., actually doing something about it) that may lead to important scholarships, conference presenting, networking, and publishing.
The purpose of the E is to educate a generation about the costs and benefits of trauma. Trauma happens suddenly without warning. E will it is hoped will be educate through a systematic collaboration that brings scholars and experts in trauma together. These scholars will be from all over the world and from specialties you might not think of who would be writing entries to an Encyclopedia of Trauma. Though we have provided a one-stop resource on trauma, we have tried to be aware and good citizens as we moved across disciplines, specializations, and other categorizations that can hinder collaboration if not properly managed.
We will succeed in our purpose if we can document that trauma can be found throughout our scholarly books, journals, and other bodies of knowledge. Trauma begs for our scholarly and professional attention to make changes; the old way is not working. Nearly anywhere you look there is someone who knows a trauma well. These trauma stories are the most important and enduring genre in films and faction. They are popular because they remind us of ourselves or a loved one in such a terrified state. These would be questions game show producers would ask It was also important to know about the score cards of everyone trauma survivors: How are they doing now? What can we learn from the experience that will enrich the rest of their lives (not that you want to go through that again for something as valuable)?
A surgeon tells of her experience in the House of Medicine (Dr. Lamp) (Producer: The name and identity of Dr. Lamp is not meant to apply to a real person but rather comprise elements of more than a dozen patients). Attracted to the adrenaline rush of doctoring, she quickly rose to the top of someone who could size up and solve a medical problem and even a relationship problem along the way. These may be considered benefits from a trauma; a traumatic event that cause some to step up others to step back; some to favor hero status and others without such a flavor. She kept stepping up until this one patient… who happened to be at the right/wrong place and the right/wrong reasons.
A social worker tells of her experience in the House of Crazy People. Mindy always wanted to help people. Her mother was a social worker, though she did not have the requisite degree, an MSW. She wondered about that often when she felt so overwhelmed her first year. They were taking back this 2 year old, again after being back with her mother for just a week, due to fear of abuse by the mother, who they feared had PTSD and could not properly care for the children. Eventually Mindy learned how to fight back the emotions and compulsions that explode in inexperienced workers. If they are unable to be taught, at least we should show them representations of the lessons in the classics, language, poetry, music, or just singing.
Trauma as a Broad Concept
Trauma is an extraordinary and potentially dangerous and life-changing event linked to human response. If there is no response there is no trauma at the time.
The trauma definition emerged from a colloquy involving more than a dozen colleagues. We all agreed that for the sake of interdisciplinarity within the academy it is important to recognize a single scholar’s leadership. She or he can be replaced at any time by the consensus of the faculty who will be responsible for the knowledge reflected in the curriculum. Therefore, the Encyclopedia defines trauma broadly and to extend the scope equally broadly to encompass nearly every element within the academy.
Thus, the definition of trauma is a fear event; an event that registered fear upon the body and psyche years after the event happened.
= Extraordinary means that the event was most often unplanned, suddenly overwhelming, out of the ordinary, and often shocking—either physically or emotionally and often both.
= Potentially dangerous means that the event activated the sympathetic nervous system associated with neurological activity that may be reactivated with certain memories of the traumatic event and has, therefore, certain psychoneuroimmunological implications for health and wellness as well as behavior.
= Potentially life-changing event means that the traumatic event may lead to a cascade of human reactions—both individual and systemic—that can be either positive or negative or a combination of both—long after the initial impact of the traumatic event.
= Human response is the immediate and long term direct and indirect reactions in the forms of neurobiological, behavior, intellectual, emotional, social, interpersonal, cultural, societal, global, other reactions, and any combination of these responses.
Purpose of the Encyclopedia of Trauma
Consistent with the global scope of the definition of trauma, the purpose of the Encyclopedia of Trauma is threefold:
= First, the purpose is to be an authoritative reference for students of trauma, a comprehensive compendium of meanings about all aspects of trauma.
= Second is to increase interest in the concept of trauma among serious scholars to generate a more comprehensive appreciation that will lead to new knowledge that may be applicable across all AFDs.
= The tertiary purpose of the encyclopedia is to stimulate new ways of identifying and helping the traumatized through our expanded knowledge.
Justification
The trauma encyclopedia is proposed now as a result of the confluence of several factors:
= The major, worldwide incidents of traumatic events due in part to climate change, the world economic crisis, and the consequent increase in political unrest.
= The maturing of the various fields and sub-fields that study, assess, and treat trauma-related mental health disorders (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder).
= Finally, there is an extraordinary increase in important scientific breakthroughs in detecting the neurobiology of trauma. This effort is connecting biology with human behavior, which, in turn, is applicable to all fields involving human thought and response, including but not limited to psychiatry, medicine and the health sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, the humanities, law, and more.
Researchers within such varied fields can contribute to a universal understanding of immediate and long-term consequences—both good and bad—of trauma, both for individuals and for broader communities and institutions.
Reader’s Guide
Although the encyclopedia will be organized in A-to-Z format, the general editor will prepare a Reader’s Guide that also groups entries around themes and broad topic areas that would allow readers interested in specific topics to find relevant related entries more easily. There will be as many as 20 such themes or topics in this Reader’s Guide, which will be a part of the front matter. Following is a tentative draft of potential Reader’s Guide themes along with representative entries.
Agriculture
1. Trauma in Agricultural Settings
2. Farming-Related Trauma Medicine
3. Droughts, Fires, and Floods and the Farming
Community
4. Farming Disaster Management
5. Medical and Mental Consequences of Farm
Injuries
6. Political Disharmony and Farming Displacement:
The Zimbabwean Case
Archeology and Anthropology
1. The Iceman and the Battles in Bones: Evidence
of Trauma in Recovered Human Skeletal
Remains
2. Forensic Archeology: Traumatic Deaths in
Bosnia, Troy, and Cambodia
3. G enetic Evidence of Physical Trauma
4. Anthropologists in War: The Human Terrain
Team Experiment
5. Trauma Among Nonhuman Primates
6. Anthropological Views of Trauma
7. Forensic Anthropology
Architecture
1. Post-9/11-Informed Architecture
2. Memoralizations Architecture: Balancing the Needs
of Survivors and the Rest of the Community
3. Trauma-Informed Architecture: Preparing for
Earthquakes and Floods
4. Traumatized Architects: Case Examples of
Traumatic Stress-Induced Genius
5. Architecture Firm Trauma From Law Suits
6. Architectural Strategies for Calming the
Traumatized
7. The Architecture of Trauma: Memory, Time, and
Place
Arts and the Humanities
1. Poetry and Trauma
2. Trauma and Dance
3. The Literature of Trauma
4. Traumatized Artists and Performers
5. Trauma in the Classics
6. Trauma Stories in Screenplays, Movies, and
Novels
7. Trauma Images in Photos, Paintings, and
Drawings
Business and Economics
1. The Business of Trauma
2. Business Plans for Natural Disaster Recovery
3. The Traumatized Business: Company Strategies
for Human Power Recovery
4. Trauma Economics and Economic Modeling in
Trauma Care
5. Financial Crises and Meltdowns: Depressions
and Hyperinflations
6. Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, and Other Personal
Economic Traumas
Children and Families
1. Childhood and Adolescent Trauma: An
Overview
2. Children and Adolescent Assessment and
Treatment
3. Family and Couples Trauma: An Overview
4. Family and Couples Trauma and Treatment
5. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Assessment and
Systemic Treatment
6. Combat, Deployment, and Military Family
Effects
Crime and Law
1. CSI, Criminalists, and the Archeologist of Crime
Scene Analysis
2. Trauma, Stress, and the Law
3. Work-Related Stress and Secondary Trauma
Among Lawyers
4. Work-Related Stress and Secondary Trauma
Among Judges
5. Work-Related Stress and Secondary Trauma
Among Law Librarians
6. Veterans Court: Effectively Weighing the
Consequences of War on Criminal Behavior
Crisis and Disasters
1. The Psychobiology of Crisis
2. The Social Psychology of Crisis
3. Crisis Theory and Intervention
4. Disaster-Related Trauma
5. Disaster Management
6. Postdisaster Community and Family Resilience
Culture and Ethnicity
1. Ethnicity, Culture, and Disaster Response
2. Ethnic and Culture Variation to Conceptualizing and Responding to Traumatic Events
3. Adapting Humanitarian Assistance with Respect to Cultural Context
4. Racial Variations in the Psychobiology of Trauma
4. Racism-Induced Trauma
6. The Role of Trauma in Ethnic and Cultural
Identity
Ethics and Philosophy
1. Trauma-Related Ethical Dilemmas
2. The Ethics of Research Involving Memories of Trauma
3. Assisted Suicide and the Ethics of Ultimate Pain Management
4. Traumatic Inventions and the Ethics of Scientific Discovery
5. The Philosophy of Trauma
6. The Philosophy of Trauma Nursing
7. The Philosophy and Ethics of Trauma Treatments and Preventions
History
1. The History of War
2. The History of Disasters
3. The History of Terrorism
4. Traumatized Historians
5. Trauma in Autobiographies
6. The History of Trauma Caregivers
Internet and Information Technology
1. Internet Terrorism
2. Media-Induced Trauma
3. Internet-Assisted Trauma Therapies
4. Twitter and Trauma: The Role of Technology in Inducing and Reducing Distress
5. Trauma.org
6. Trauma and Modern Information Technology
Entertainment and the Media
1. Trauma as Entertainment
2. Traumatized Entertainers
3. If It Bleeds, It Leads: The Role of Sensationalism and the Economics of News Media
4. The Role of Media in Managing Disasters
5. Trauma in Movies and Plays
Medicine
1. Traumatology, Trauma Medicine, and Orthopedics
2. Traumatized Nurses
3. Traumatized Physicians
4. Disaster Medicine
5. Combat Medics and Corpsmen
6. Trauma, Medication, and Psychiatry
Natural Sciences
1. Traumatized Scientists
2. Astronomy and the Trauma of Giant Impacts
3. Biological Effects of Physical and Psychological
Trauma
4. Immediate and Long-Term Biochemical Effects of Trauma
5. Trauma Geology
6. Trauma and Physics: Explosions, Blasts, and
Sound Effects
Psychology
1. Trauma Psychology Research
2. Clinical Trauma Psychology
3. Military Psychology and Combat Stress Injuries
4. Theories of Psychological Trauma
5. Combat Psychologists
6. Psychoneuroimmunology and Trauma
Social Work
1. Trauma Social Work Research
2. Trauma Social Work Practice
3. Military Social Work and Combat Stress
Management
4. Homelessness and Trauma
5. Domestic Violence Trauma
6. Secondary Trauma of Social Work
Spirituality and Religion
1. Trauma, Meaning Making, and Spirituality
2. Secondary Trauma of Chaplains and Other Faith
Community Practitioner
3. Religious Responses to Trauma
4. Traumatization in the Name of Religion
5. Combat Chaplains
Plans are underway to recruit eight members of an internationally acclaimed editorial board who will assist the editor in finding more than 320 entries to the encyclopedia of varying lengths by first recruiting as many as 35 colleagues who will become members of the editorial advisory group. This group will be familiar with at least one and often two above mentioned themes and who will not only know those qualified to write entries but who can also serve as ad hoc reviewers for the encyclopedia.
Those interested in contributing to E or being either a member of the editorial advisory group, a contributor, or have recommendations are urged to contact me at Figley@Tulane.Edu. Or call 504-872-3473 and leave a short message at.
