Modern Terrorism and Psychological Trauma

Brian Trappler, a renowned psychiatrist specializing in treating traumatized patients, organizes the literature anew such that this volume can explain how terrorist-induced psychological trauma may be treated in the therapeutic setting to achieve the most rapid and enduring alleviation of symptoms from both short-term and long-term exposure to terrorism, especially posttraumatic stress disorder.

Through studies focusing on victims of terrorism in America on 9/11 and afterward in England, Spain, Israel, and other countries, as well as studies of pre-9/11 victims, especially Holocaust survivors, this anthology explains how mental-health professionals conceptualize and analyze the nature of terror-induced psychological trauma at both the individual and the community level, and why their research findings have profound treatment implications for men and women of every age, socioeconomic status, religion, nationality, and ethnic background.

Modern Terrorism and Psychological Trauma is more than an invaluable primer, however, because Dr. Trappler organizes the seminal literature anew based on his original theoretical perspective, which approaches the spectrum of psychological trauma as a multi-layered hybrid of events and uses a novel, multi-dimensional model to explain the entire spectrum of psychopathology related to terrorism. In its simplest form, the Trappler model posits that most victims have some stress-related symptoms following exposure to a discrete terrorist attack, while fewer victims are left with enduring symptoms of classic PTSD. The more complex form of trauma pathology evolves from a prolonged relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. Here Dr. Trappler deviates from PTSD reductionism and explores object-relations and Jungian theories to explain the insidious transformative effect of "continuous terror" on the victim.

A rich collection of studies by mental health professionals that provide a deep understanding of the nature of psychological trauma induced by modern terrorism

BRIAN TRAPPLER, M.D., is the director of Outpa-tient Services at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, NY, and an associate clinical pro-fessor in psychiatry at the State University of New York at Brooklyn. From 1994-2002, Dr. Trappler was associate medical director of the Anxiety Clinic at SUNY Downstate, where he has also been involved in the education of medical students, residents, psychiatric fellows, and psychology predoctoral interns, since 1994, and reformulated the undergraduate training program in psychiatry at the request of the dean of the medical school. In 1994, Dr. Trappler received a grant from the Office of Mental Health to treat the victims of the Brooklyn Bridge shooting, and on September 11, 2001, he worked as a first responder for survivors of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Dr. Trappler, who has spent most of his career treating Holocaust survivors, has presented his research findings at various meetings of the American Psychiatric Association and at the Institute for Psychiatric Services meeting in 2006, where he presented his clinical research on the treatment of victims of complex trauma. Dr. Trappler serves as a referee for several prestigious psychiatric journals, including Annals of Psychopharmacology, and his clinical research findings have been published in various refereed journals, including the American Journal of Psychiatry and the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.