Five individuals were awarded the JCVVS Professional Certificate in Victim Assistance: Critical Analysis at the Wyoming 10th Annual Victim Service Conference. In addition to participation in the intensive course, successful completion of a comprehensive exam, and an analysis paper, the recipients presented their paper topic at the conference. The recipients and their topics were:

Michelle John "The Criminal Justice Response to Stalking: The Need for Adaptation"

Tina Henderson "Batter's Re-education: Is it Worth the Time?"

Tracy Tefren "The Necessity for Child Visitation Centers"

Kathy McCoole "Privileged Communication and Military Victim Assistance"

Amy Pearson "Assessing Organizational Response to Work Related Stress in Victim Services"

These individuals join a small but prestigious group of professionals who have completed the requirements for this highly recognized professional certificate. Congratulations!

Dan Petersen and Thomas Underwood presented a workshop "Professional Responses to Crime Victims with Disabilities" at the Wyoming Victim Service Conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The workshop presented data on a national survey identifying learning needs of professionals in victim services, disability services, and allied professions regarding this issue. Also, strategies to develop collaborative teams from communities to attend the Responding to Crime Victims with Disabilities National Conference and develop action plans were discussed.

Dan Petersen also presented the workshop "How Trauma Affects Relationships." The workshop focused on understanding how trauma impacts the individual in the context of their social interactions thereby providing service professionals the knowledge to help prevent severe reactions, reduce risk, and respond with better treatment.

Steven Walker represented the JCVVS at the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators by presenting the workshops "Mental Health: Long Term and Short Term Trauma" and "Substance Abuse and Victimization." The focus of the first workshop was on the victim advocate's decision either to intervene directly or to refer a victim to a mental health professional. This workshop reviewed symptoms related to short term trauma while also describing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in detail. Two different systems of intervention were also discussed. This workshop is one that Dr. Walker has done for almost 10 years at NVAA and state academies and was an abbreviated version of a segment of the Joint Center's "Critical Analysis of Victim Assistance" program.

The second workshop discussed the need for victim agencies to develop some screening questions for substance abuse as a part of their overall screening. Statistics relating the high correlations between trauma, PTSD, and substance abuse were evaluated. A brief discussion of the dynamics of substance abuse was explored, and various types of screening instruments were described.

JCVVS e-newsletter reviews offer a brief synopsis of research and programs relevant to violence and victim studies. Brevity does not allow for comprehensive analysis, rather key points and observations for further review and consideration. Reviews are provided by persons affiliated by the JCVVS and do not necessarily reflect the position of the JCVVS or the affiliate Universities.

Author: R. Gordon
Title: Thirty Years of Trauma Work: Clarifying and Broadening the Consequences of Trauma Publisher: Psychotherapy in Austria, (2007), vol. 13(3), pp. 12-10.
Reviewed by: Brian Ogawa, D. Min

Gordon is a clinical psychologist in Australia. He describes how the understanding of traumatic events and their human consequences have evolved over the last several decades from a failure to acknowledge how trauma plays a formative influence on personality and behavior to its present recognition as a primary influence. Gordon also argues that the mental health field has moved from the view that exposure to traumatic experiences results inevitably in "traumatisation" and a need for clinical help, which often meant "overenthusiastic counselors" forcing themselves on those who just needed "time, space, and security." He states that only a portion of those exposed to trauma actually develop PTSD and its associated clinical conditions. More attention therefore needs to be on a more "comprehensive psychology of the person" and an emphasis on the social dimension of trauma impact and recovery support rather than just psychic injury. The more we narrowly fixate on the trauma itself, Gordon posits, the more we are in danger of losing the person: "The best thing we can give a traumatized person is sensitivity to their whole being."

Gordon presents trauma as consisting of two types: sensory and informational. The first is defined by the sensory impressions the person receives at the time of the traumatic experience. Threatening, horrific, and painful impressions damage the capacity to put the experience into words, relegate it to the past, and consign it to memory. Sensory trauma thereby "locks" the person into the specifics of an experience and isolates them from others who do not understand it. Informational trauma occurs to those not present at the event but who are informed as to its occurrence to someone, e.g., a loved one. Absent from the direct sensory trauma, persons thus traumatized often transfer distress to the social context, i.e., anger at the perpetrator, upset at the justice system, etc.

Gordon presents several essentials of trauma treatment purportedly independent of method or therapeutic school. His short list, nonetheless, seems to coalesce around familiar Cognitive-Behavioral themes: exposure to memories to reduce intensity, development of new meanings to experiences through cognitive restructuring, and affect regulation. His treatment goals therein include helping the client to convert fragmentary accounts of the trauma event to a more expressive narrative and converting the memory into a verbal representation to lessen its power and intrusiveness. The therapist can thus "listen with precision" to what is verbalized, and assist the person in rebonding (reestablishing social connectedness), a vital element of healing. That is why, Gordon states, that simple social interaction and interpersonal care are such an important part of psychological first aid.

Gordon brings a helpful social wounds perspective to trauma work that does not sink practitioners deeper into the cavern of psychopathology. Therapeutic interventions that address a more holistic and integrated approach to stress, suffering, and trauma have certainly been an increasing topic of services to victims and survivors. Practitioners have become more knowledgeable about broad definitions of wellbeing and the assumptions of care. Part of this awareness has been the result of better meeting the multi-ethnic demographics of victim/survivor populations as wells as the testing of psychotherapy models when confronted with the realities of the dramatic violence and widespread aftermath of terrorism and mass disasters. The preference for and convenience of private therapist-client settings, dependent upon and primary utilizing verbal articulation/persuasion and cognitive reframing/insight, is many times impractical and inappropriate. Those who counsel victims/survivors are challenged with the task of developing many avenues of intervention to meet multiple presenting needs. Comorbidity (e.g., substance abuse) alone indicates at least a multidisciplinary respect. What is necessary are modalities that are intrinsically fluid and adaptable to many circumstances, facilitate a number of entry points for intervention, and enhance the total health of a person.

email: jcvvs@washburn.edu

phone: 785-670-1399

web: http://www.washburn.edu/ce/jcvvs/