The Active Ingredients Project:
Investigation of Effective Management and Desensitization Techniques among
the Most Promising PTSD Treatments
Research Team: Professors Joyce Carbonell (Psychology),
Charles Figley (Interdivisional Ph.D. Program in Marriage and Family(IPMAF),
Mary Hicks (IPMAF), Sally Karioth (Nursing), and Ray Bardill (Social Work).
Ph.D. Students Veronika Opsina-Kammerer, Janet
Nambi, Mike McGee, Mike Barnes, and others
At the First Active Ingredients Projects Conference (left to right:
Gerald French, Frank Gerbode, Teresa Descilo, Mary Ann Reese, and Edward
Reese, Charles Figley, Joyce Carbonell, Fred Gallo, and Eric Gentry
The Conference focused on the initial findings of the FSU Research Team
(headed by Joyce Carbonell and Charles Figley) and sought input from scholars
and practitioners about what they believe to be the common features among
these neoteric treatment approaches for PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
(left to right) Callahan, Roger Callahan, Roger Solomon, and Francine
Shapiro
An overflow audience added to the utility of the conference. 
Most
were experienced practitioners who had discovered through their own clinical
innovation how to help clients desensitize from troubling memories and
move on in greater health in life.
The following year (1996) the conference continued to speculate on and
deconstruct and dismantle the various neoteric treatment approaches under
investigation. Moreover, the focus was on the Green Cross Projects partnership
with colleages in Oklahoma City following the bombing.
Psychosocial
Distress Assessment, Management, Prevention, and Mitigation
This link discusses what was in place at the time of the Active Ingredient
Project. It was within the context of the program of research that the
need for an evidenced-based treatments of PTSD, starting with the systematic
clinical demonstration methodology.
Interest in burnout and especially the Compassion
Fatigue
experienced by nurses, social workers, and family therapists stimulated
the active ingredient project. Why? Because those who were using treatment
methods that appear to cause relief in the client did not experience (or
rarely experienced) compassion stress or fatigue in the course of working
with the traumatized.
Back to Professor
Figley's Research Interests