Child soldiers : Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front

Tragically, violence and armed conflict have become commonplace in the lives of many children around the world. Not only have millions of children been forced to witness war and its atrocities, but many are drawn into conflict as active participants. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Sierra Leone during its 11-year civil war. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and focus groups with former child soldiers of Sierra Leone’s rebel Revolutionary United Front, Myriam Denov compassionately examines how child soldiers are initiated into the complex world of violence and armed conflict.

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Childhood adversities as risk factors for onset and persistence of suicidal behaviour

BACKGROUND: Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, but the precise effect of childhood adversities as risk factors for the onset and persistence of suicidal behaviour (suicide ideation, plans and attempts) are not well understood. AIMS: To examine the associations between childhood adversities as risk factors for the onset and persistence of suicidal behaviour across 21 countries worldwide.

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Childhood life events and childhood trauma in adult patients with depressive, anxiety and comorbid disorders vs. controls

Objective: To investigate the association between childhood life events, childhood trauma and the presence of anxiety, depressive or comorbid anxiety and depressive disorders in adulthood. Method: Data are from 1931 adult participants in the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). Childhood life events included divorce of parents, early parental loss and 'placed in care', whereas childhood trauma was assessed as experienced emotional neglect, psychological, physical and sexual abuse prior to age 16.

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Chronische Alltagsbelastungen und frühe Traumatisierung: auswirkungen auf die aktuelle PTSD Symptomatik = Chronic stress and early trauma experiences: the impact on PTSD symptoms

Eine Vielzahl von Faktoren beeinflusst die Symptomstärke einer Posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung (PTBS). Die meisten Studien untersuchten allerdings Variabeln, die in engem Zusammenhang mit der Traumatisierung stehen, wie z. B. die subjektive Reaktion auf ein Trauma und akute Symptome, aber auch prä-traumatische Risikofaktoren. Der Einfluss von akutem Stress und Alltagsbelastungen fand jedoch weit weniger Beachtung. Dementsprechend soll in dieser Studie untersucht werden, inwieweit auch aktuelle, nicht traumatische Stressbelastungen die Ausprägung von PTBS-Symptomen beeinflussen.

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Camp stories

The author lived in the Dutch Indies during the Second World War. The book is based on her childhood memories from the time of the Japanese occupation in Java (1942–1945), when the Europeans in Indonesia were sent to prison camps and concentration camps. She reminisces life in the Cideng prison camp as well as the position of her family as Jews in a country under Nazi influence. (bibliotheek.nl)

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Can Asylum-Seekers with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Be Successfully Treated? A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

Rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are exceptionally high among asylum-seekers. Reportedly, stressors caused by the asylum procedure and psychological consequences of torture contribute to the maintenance of symptoms and interfere with treatment. In a pilot randomized controlled trial, the authors examined the efficacy of trauma-focused treatment in 32 asylum-seekers with PTSD resulting from state-sponsored violence and other traumatic events. Narrative exposure therapy (NET) was compared with treatment as usual (TAU), with a focus on stabilization and psychoactive medication.

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Care as a turning point in sociotherapy: Remaking the moral world in post-genocide Rwanda

Community-based sociotherapy was introduced in Rwanda in 2005 in order to contribute to the healing of social worlds that were severely damaged by war and genocide. People who participate in sociotherapy perceive this intervention as medicine for their troubled hearts. Each sociotherapy group, averaging twelve people, holds fifteen weekly meetings. Two facilitators guide the group through six different phases: safety, trust, care, respect, new rules, and memory.

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Bringing politics back in. The introduction of 'the performative power' of counterterrorism

While it is sensible that governments and academics endeavour to assess the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies, this article argues that it is almost impossible to measure arithmetically the outcome of counterterrorism efforts for a variety of reasons. However, this does not mean that the effect of governmental policy cannot and should not be assessed. This article argues that it is not necessarily the policy measures and their intended results as such, but much more the way in which they are presented and perceived, that determine the overall effect of the policy in question.

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Building social capital and improving mental health care to prevent suicide

This month’s issue of the IJE carries three articles, and accompanying commentaries, on the theme of suicide.

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Bouncing back - trauma and the HPA-axis in healthy adults

Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis is thought to underlie stress-related psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some studies have reported HPA-axis dysregulation in trauma-exposed (TE) adults in the absence of psychiatric morbidity. In this dissertation we set out to unravel part of the mechanism that underlies the complex relations between trauma exposure, stress regulation, and psychopathology. Mentally healthy TE subjects were compared with non-trauma-exposed (NE) healthy controls.

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