Psychotraumatology is the study of psychological trauma, researching, preventing and treating traumatic situations and people's reactions to them. The discipline concentrates on post-traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder, though its scope extends more broadly to any adverse reaction following a traumatic event, including dissociative disorders. Psychotraumatology examines three temporal categories of contributing factors: those preceding a traumatic event, such as developmental history, personality and psychiatric risk factors; those present during the event itself, such as environmental and biological factors; and those following the event, such as psychological responses and physiological effects. Since 2021, specialists who achieve significant training and clinical expertise in the field may use the credential PsyT as a recognized standard.
Facts
Partially Attested
Key DebateScholars debated whether traumatology was an appropriate unifying term for the field, after Schnitt raised concern in 1993 that the term carried at least two meanings and significant potential for ambiguity. 1 Source shows a naming dispute over the term traumatology rather than a live theoretical debate; recorded as the field's clearest documented point of contention. Central QuestionPsychotraumatology studies the processes and factors that lie antecedent to, concomitant with, and subsequent to psychological traumatization. 1 Sources
1. Psychotraumatology, Wikipedia
Lead section
the study of psychological trauma; more specifically, the study of the processes and factors that lie (a) antecedent to, (b) concomitant with, and (c) subsequent to psychological traumatization
History section
Schnitt (1993) expressed concern over Donovan's choice of a term that has at least two meanings
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