Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

  • Supportive counselling is ineffective for managing PTSD in youth

    More than half of children and young people are exposed to potentially traumatic events,and a significant minority of those exposed go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Because PTSD can be chronic, it can have a notable impact on child development, as well as social, academic and occupational function – it is therefore imperative that effective treatments are identified and prioritized.

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  • In Conversation… Professor Lucy Bowes on early life stress

    Professor Lucy Bowes, Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and Head of the oRANGE Lab, discusses her research on early life stress in relation to psychological and behavioural development, the impact of bullying in adolescents,  together with exciting developments with virtual reality.

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  • Cognitive processes mediate the post-traumatic stress trajectory in adolescents

    A new study has shown that cognitive processes shape the early reactions of children and adolescents to traumatic stressors, and mediate the transition to persistent and clinically significant post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS).

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  • Professor Andrea Danese

    In conversation… Professor Andrea Danese discusses Trauma

    Andrea discusses the impact trauma has on the child, the Topic Guide on Trauma he wrote with Dr Patrick Smith for ACAMH. He also talks about the recent paper in The Lancet ‘The epidemiology of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder in a representative cohort of young people in England and Wales’ Lewis, S J et al, and its findings.

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  • PTSD edition

    Trauma can occur in many forms from single exposure to a life-threatening or fear-inducing event, to sustained trauma ranging from neglect, other abuses, famine or war. All of which can present in clinical practice.

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  • Practitioner recommendations for PTSD: a 2018 update

    In 2018, Patrick Smith, Tim Dalgleish and Richard Meiser-Stedman compiled a Practitioner Review for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its treatment in children and adolescents. In their report, the researchers provide updates on the estimated rates of trauma exposure, and the incidence and course of PTSD in children.

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  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing improves PTSD symptoms in children

    Practice guidelines for childhood post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recommend trauma-focused psychological therapies as the first-line treatment. The primary approach is trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapies, which have a large evidence base.

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  • Foster care promotes adaptive functioning in early adolescence among children who experienced severe, early deprivation.

    Experiences in our early life can have long-term consequences on development. Children who have experienced severe deprivation, in the form of institutional care (orphanages), are at greater risk to experience a range of social, emotional, and cognitive difficulties. In fact, much of the research tracing long-term consequences of early adversity have come from a deficit model (i.e., “what goes wrong for those with negative experiences”).

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  • Early cognitive therapy for traumatised young people works and is also cost-effective

    More than half of children and adolescents will experience traumatic events like vehicle accidents, house fires, or violence.  However, brief counselling for young people in the immediate aftermath of an acute traumatic event has not be shown to be any more effective than not intervening and allowing natural recovery to take its course.

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  • Latest evidence on mental health interventions and service response to refugee children

    The latest figures indicate that in 2016 65.5 million people had to leave their homes due to war and armed conflicts, of which around one-third of are refugees who fled other countries to seek asylum.

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