Psychological Trauma Research

As this encyclopedia demonstrates, research on psychological trauma is vast. Electronic bibliographic databases such as Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress (PILOTS) and PsycINFO now hold thousands of books and peer-reviewed articles on psychological trauma, placing it among the most researched and debated notions in current scientific literature. Research originates from an array of psychological, biological, and cultural perspectives. Together, these disciplines explore the multidimensional aspects of traumatic events and offer a broad understanding of variables antecedent to, comorbid with, and following highly stressful experiences. After a brief overview of earlier psychological trauma studies, this entry documents some of the main trajectories of current research in these disciplines. For clarity purposes, these trajectories are presented under a threefold division: research concerning the stressor, the victim, ...