Breaking Global Boundaries in Traumatic Stress and Mental Health Research, Clinical Practice and Collaboration

There is an increasing awareness of the global need for the provision of efficient, effective and accessible treatments that deal with the devastating consequences of psychological trauma, especially in countries affected by large-scale crises and history of civic and cross-border strives. Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of trauma-focused first-line psychotherapies and the potential to even train lay-counselors from low- and middle-income countries in the provision of Western-developed treatment approaches. With an increasing acceptance of open science, the barriers to accessing the latest research findings and databases are continually being reduced for those researchers and institutions with limited financial resources. This change should usher a new way of integrating and collaborating across borders. Although transcultural awareness is emphasized in international discourse, few health and interventional programs have embedded authentic reciprocal exchange between western and non-western countries, or between academic and non-academic health care providers, in their standard operations. At the current time, transcultural trauma care is limited in scope and focuses primarily on sporadic attempts at translating and implementing Western concepts, theories, methods, and techniques to non-western cultures.

This Research Topic aims to promote authentic transcultural exchange and collaborations in the field of traumatic stress and related mental health research, and clinical practice. It strives towards a “thinking out of the box” approach that is not limited by western academic constraints. In particular, it encourages researchers and academics from non-Western countries and cultures, but also non-academics that have key positions in their respective communities, to make distinct, independent and critical contributions to the international discourse in psychotraumatology. These contributions should not be limited to the mere application of Western approaches to non-western settings, but rather demonstrate how inclusion of alternative understandings of trauma, mental health, and/or treatments can contribute to the development of novel, second-order theories and approaches. This issue also has a strong interest in promoting exchange between academic institutions and local service providers or other key actors, and in the inclusion of culture-specific healing practices.

The topical issue is not intended to view culture as a source of variance that complicates the application of already established approaches, but rather to expand our approaches and perspectives on dealing with traumatic stress and related mental health problems in a global context. Also, our goal will be to provide a valuable source of inspiration that can serve to challenge dominating understandings and structures in how we conceptualize, assess, and treat these clinical challenges. Our ultimate goal in this topical issue will be to foster reciprocal curiosity as a basis for breaking boundaries in trauma related research and treatment.

The Research Topic is entitled “Breaking global boundaries in traumatic stress and mental health research, clinical practice and collaboration ”. To stay true to their intentions, the guest-editors of this topical issue decided to refrain from defining further constraints shaped by their own academic and cultural backgrounds. Instead, the editors want to encourage a rethinking of contemporary transcultural exchange in the field of psychotraumatology, not only with regards to assessment and treatment approaches, but also in domains related to professional exchange and scientific collaborations.

We welcome contributions on:

• research papers that cover research utilizing traditional and complementary healing practices with accepted scientific methods;
• theoretical or research papers that acknowledge the complexity of the local cultural and/or ecological environment in the application of current trauma-focused interventions;
• empirical, methodological papers that promote novel approaches for transcultural collaborations and the exchange among cultures, as well as between research and service providers;
• research papers that have used hybrid approaches in a cross-cultural context, as well as papers that build on combinations of expertise from researchers and practitioners. In this regards, papers that have integrate multiple methods (e.g., clinic, community, population-based) will be of particular interest;
• methodological papers that provide new perspectives on how to rethink quality assessment criteria for evaluating contributions from non-academics and/or academic contributions that do not match western understandings of “evidence-based”, to facilitate transcultural exchange on international and transcultural levels;
• theoretical papers that encourage new approaches on how diverse understandings of trauma, mental health, and/or treatment can be integrated into international guidelines or treatment recommendations that are currently bound to western academic thinking.

Lastly, the guest editors welcome any other submissions and recommendations that add a valuable contribution to the theme of this topical issue and that are not listed above.