This line of inquiry started in 1970s at Purdue
University with the investigation of the interpersonal, social, and emotional
effects of service in combat among Vietnam are veterans. This resulted
in the first textbook on the mental health consequences of war combat and
strategies for managing these consequences. The first book was influential
in getting combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) accepted
and understood. The diagnosis was first specified in 1980. The current
version of PTSD is from the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM IV)
As awareness of their mental health needs were
clarified, it became obvious from the research being conducted at Purdue
University and the Family Research Institute, that the most recent cohort
of war veterans were significantly different from other cohorts.
Strangers
At Home was a theme of Willard Waller in his investigation of returning
WW II war veterans. And the "homecoming" often experienced by war veterans,
no matter the era, is similar: Those who return assume nothing has changed,
and it has. Those at home expect the returning vet to be much changed but
find little.
The 1980s at Purdue University
The psychosocial stress research program at the
Family Research Institute established the Brunner/Mazel Psychosocial Stress
Book Series in the next ten years it would publish 25 books in the area
of stress and coping.
In 1984 the Institute started the Journal of Psychotherapy
and the Family (now the Journal Family Psychotherapy) and a series of special
issues and books on areas of most critical importance in family and systems
assessment and treatment, including the first volume, Computers and
Family Therapy.
In 1983 Stress and the Family (Volume I, Coping with Normative Transitions and Volume II, Coping with Catastrophe) were published, co-edited with Dean Hamilton McCubbin (Minnesota and Wisconsin).
In 1985 and 1986 was the publication of Trauma
and Its Wake, Volume I and II, respectively. The third volume became the
first volume of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, since both required peer
reviews. In 1985 the Society for Traumatic Stress Studies was born and
a year later the Journal of Traumatic Stress (first issued published in
1988) emerged. Both were managed from the Family Research Institute offices.
Two books, Treating Stress in Families and Helping
Traumatized Families were published in 1989 to help family specialists
help these families utilizing the emerging field of traumatology.
The 1990s at Florida State University
The Psychosocial Stress Research Program moved
from Purdue Unversity to the Florida State University in 1989, along with
the book series, Journal of Traumatic Stress, and the various research
projects. Shortly there after, the Class Assistance Program funded a series
of projects by the Research Program that focused on the immediate and long-term
psychosocial stress among the families of war veterans. The purpose of
the grant was to provide resources for these special families and figure
out the most effective methods of treatment. What emerged from these funded
projects was the Active Ingredient Project, noted above.
Four influential books were published that reported
some of the collective findings of these studies. They include books on
Compassion
Fatigue
Death and
Trauma and
Trauamtology of Grieving
Burnout in Families
In 1998 the Board of Regents of the Florida State Univesity System approved a name change for the Program to the Traumatology Institute. The Institute included the research and editorial activities of the Research Program and also the Center for Professional Development-Trauamtology Institute- School of Social Work joint venture with the Traumatology Certificate Program, the Compassion Fatigue Specialist Certificated, and the Field Traumatologist Certificate Program.
Since 1998 the Traumatology Institute has established sister institutes offering certificate training in traumatology in Porto Rico, Oklahoma City, Miami, Tennessee, Canada, Texas, in addition to Tallahassee. Various research projects supported by the Institute include