Clinical Social Work Journal - Call for Papers: Collective and Shared Trauma
This special issue of the Clinical Social Work Journal seeks original manuscripts dedicated to advancing knowledge and clinical practice on the topic of collective trauma and its impact on the therapeutic process, better known as shared trauma. Collective trauma is defined as the unwanted psychosocial, emotional, spiritual, and physiological consequences of frightening and prolonged traumatic events. However, in contrast to trauma impacting individuals, collective trauma impacts groups of people. Shared trauma, a form of collective trauma, is defines as the multi-modal response of the clinician's dual exposure to collective trauma, primarily as a citizen of the impacted region and secondarily as a mental health practitioner providing services to others impacted by the same traumatic event.
Traumatic events such as pandemics (e.g. COVID-19), wars, weather-related disasters, mass shootings, and mass casualty events are examples of experiences where people may identify as having experienced a collective trauma, meaning that traumatic experience(s) was shared with others, including clinicians and the clients they serve. These frightening events can impact a significant portion of a population, and although the event may have occurred within a group, individual and group experiences and responses can vary greatly.
The purpose of this special issue is to begin to build a research-based literature on collective trauma axioms that starts with the views and experiences of social work and other mental health practitioners, as these professionals play a key role in the recovery process. Through their contributions, the field will have a stronger understanding of the special needs of the individuals who have experienced collective trauma.
Since collective trauma is the collective psychological reactions to traumatic events, stipulating the event, such as a dangerous railway accident, is very important. Such events impact an entire society's collective memory of an awful event that happened to that group of people. Though it is a relatively new concept, this Special Issue on Collective and Shared Trauma is a serious effort to track and characterize the collective traumatic experiences, emotions, organizational structure, and standing in the community (i.e., position, status, or reputation).
For this special issue the journal is interested in manuscripts that present innovative clinical practice approaches to the delivery of trauma services to individual adults, children, families, and groups who have experienced a trauma collectively. We are interested in clinical practice outcomes and experiences of collective trauma clients from their initial entry into the psychotherapy system to post-treatment and all other alternatives.
We are also interested in manuscripts contributing to our further understanding of shared trauma and the impact of the collective trauma on the clinician's personal and professional lives.
All research manuscripts must have a strong discussion of implications for clinical practice with this collective, traumatized population. Manuscripts focusing on shared trauma and clinicians as a traumatized group are also welcome. Theoretical papers are welcomed, as long as they are relevant to understanding the needs and strengths of this population and how best to enhance trauma education and resilience within a clinical setting.
Manuscript submissions to this call for papers should address clinical practice work in response to current and future collective trauma contexts including but not limited to:
- Trauma-informed clinical practice
- Shared trauma and its impact on the clinical process
- Impact of implicit and explicit bias in clinical practice
- COVID-19 and other factors leading to collective trauma
- Racial and gender disproportionality and disparities
- Behavioral health services collective trauma survivors
- Clinical approaches to finding, supporting, and referring individuals who have experienced collective trauma for clinical support/interventions
- Grandparents parenting grandchildren due to collective trauma
- Case studies of collective trauma events and the need for services
- Measures to screen for or identify collective trauma and/or shared trauma
Interested authors are asked to submit an abstract (200-250 words) discussing their topic, including key factors that will be addressed. Abstracts will be selected within a month based on the overall quality of the ideas, relevance to the topic of collective and/or shared trauma, and what the paper might add to the overall discourse regarding collective and/or shared trauma. Selected abstract authors will be invited to submit a completed manuscript for consideration in the special issue.
All manuscripts, including invited submissions, must go through the Clinical Social Work Journal's peer review process prior to selection of final manuscripts for publication in the special issue.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 31, 2023
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: September 30, 2023
Please submit your abstract via email to guest editor Dr. Charles R. Figley (figley@tulane.edu (this opens in a new tab)) and Dr. Carol Tosone (ct2@nyu.edu (this opens in a new tab)).