Systemic Trauma Research

The research of systemic trauma can be defined in terms related to the study of three constructs: systemic, systems psychology, and trauma. This entry first reviews these three main ideas and then offers examples and recommendations for the trauma worker and researcher.

Systemic refers to a phenomenon that is spread throughout a system or whole entity, affecting a group or metaphysic such as the psyche, a bodily or organ system, an individual identity or physical body, a family system, a collective or organization, an ethnic group, a culture, market, government, state, nation, or even an entire biosphere or galaxy. Different levels of systems can be involved and might be referred to as micro-, meso-, and macro-systemic to begin to categorize systems effects that are interrelated, hierarchical, or nested and enable their study and analysis. Systemic research may also refer to studying the effects of treatment targeting any of the levels, such as the treatment of an infection or inflammation on the micro-systems or individual systems level, or a treatment refractory depression secondary to chronic traumatic stress syndromes.

Systems psychology is a branch of applied psychology that considers individuals and groups as complex systems in, or moving toward, relative homeostasis. The central idea of this entry on systemic trauma research necessarily extends the premises of systems psychology and considers traumas [Page 662]that occur on one of the three levels mentioned—micro, meso, or macro—and that affect one or more of the other levels systemically. The study of these three levels helps situate the effects of trauma on various systems and helps the researcher discern various interrelationships and mitigating effects between and among different levels.

Trauma, from the Greek word for wound, is usually considered to be a serious and body-altering physical injury (such as a blunt or penetrating wound) or a psychological injury or emotional wound originating in a response to a life-threatening situation of extreme stress, such as combat or assault or witnessing death or serious injury. The two types of trauma often co-occur but also occur in isolation and combination and can be studied in various ways that tend to focus either on emergent phenomena (such as in qualitative research) or causal research (used more in quantitative research).