Psychological debriefing, troubled children, and homophobia: Toward a multidisciplinary, multidimensional field of traumatology.

Abstract

This article asserts that in order for the field of Traumatology, to thrive it must embrace a multidisciplinary approach that adopts a wide variety of methods of inquiry. An example of such diversity of inquiry is the latest issue of TRAUMATOLOGYe. Three papers are reviewed. It is noted that the Dyregrov (1998) article represents the latest assertion that psychological debriefing including, but not limited to Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) is valuable. The assertion is that no research has confirmed the lack of utility. Indeed, the fact that so many continue to use debriefings illustrate the utility of the approach. This article then focuses on the paper by Bedics, Rappe & Sansone (1998). Their study focused on the case records of children enrolled in a residency treatment program for children with conduct disorders, 11-16 years old. The investigators predicted and found that a substantial number of children in the program were exposed to considerable traumatic events and met the criteria for ...