Anne M. Dietrich, Anna B. Baranowsky, Mona Devich-Navarro, J. Eric Gentry, Chrys J. Harris, and Charles R. Figley (2000), is the first systematic review of the neoteric, alternative treatment approaches for PTSD. In addition to describing these approaches, the review team utilized the existing literature to evaluate the effectiveness of each approach. The team focused on six approaches: Trauma Recovery Institute (TRI) Method, the Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) approach, the Visual/Kinesthetic Dissociation (V/KD) technique, and Thought Field Therapy (TFT). The team utilized an inferential validity strategy for evaluating case studies. They computed effect sizes when reporting on studies of any of these treatments. They conclude that much more research is needed to definitively evaluate the effectiveness of these approaches. Though all are promising, they report that three approaches appear to be effective in treating posttraumatic stress symptoms. They were TIR, TRI, and V/KD.

        The final two articles are included in the Reports From the Field Section of the Journal. This section of the Journal is devoted to reports by traumatologists who have experience in applying traumatology principles in the field and have a perspective to share that the Editors believe is valuable but are published as they are submitted. Like a letter to the editor, this means of communication assures that the authors are able to share their perspective quickly and unedited. As with all articles published in this Journal, the Editorial Board encourages responses from the readership.

        In the first report Mooli Lahad (2000), an Israeli professor, offers a way of understanding the experiences of traumatologists working with the traumatized, as a practitioner and supervisory of practitioners.  He suggests that we view the struggles of practitioners dealing with the trauma experiences of their clients from what he calls a "dramatherapeutic perspective." He suggests that practitioners need a way of differentiating from the experiences of their clients. He finds that various rituals, ceremonies and metaphoric myths have great potential for helping purge trauma material from the practitioner. Beginning with a review of Valent's (1995) conceptualization of attachment, he compares practitioners' attention to their clients as a parent's "magic touch" of calming their child through reassurance.  Clients experiencing considerable traumatic distress looks to the practitioner much like a helpless and dependent child. "The fierce desire to protect activates the fantasy of omnipotence related to the experience of the parent’s ‘magic touch’ and makes the helper feel omnipotent. However, the failure of the ‘magic’ in the encounter with the disaster victim is liable to make the helper feel helpless, empty, and self-doubting." This dichotomy of  impotence versus omnipotence, Lahad believes, is at the heart of compassion fatigue. He notes that van der Kolk (1996) reference to the practitioner being caught up in the client's frightening experiences as being pulled into the  ‘black hole of trauma’, is similar to his own revelations. He notes that the Bible's Book of Genesis (1:2) discusses darkness over the abyss: “And the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep"…. And the next (1:3): “And God said, ‘Let there be light’”.  And then, God starting making order in the chaos by separating between sky and earth. . . ." Practitioners attempt to bring light or understanding and relief to the traumatized, even though he or she is far from being omnipotent or God. Lahad uses the latter part of the article to describe how he has structured a group session of practitioners to help them recognize their conundrum of being expected to transform the traumatized as if they had magical powers. I hope that more supervisors would spend this amount of time and attention to the compassion fatigue of their traumatologists. Perhaps those of you who are reading this will send the Journal a description of your own efforts.

The final article in this Reports from the Field Section, by Howard Lipke and  Chad Glang (2000), focuses on an interesting experience in working with Albanian Kosovar refugees last year in a refugee camp in Hemer, Germany. Lipke and Glang, though highly trained and proficient traumatologists, worked with a large number of clients for a brief amount of time who had to rely on poorly trained interpreters who were themselves refugees in need of traumatology services (and eventually received it). They provide a fascinating description of how Western educated practitioners were forced to adopt their methods of treatment ("standard EMDR model") to fit the requirements of the context. Among other things, they had to represent their work as educational ("information focus groups") and not "treatment" (due to the stigma), skip the time consuming activities of assessment and rapport building, and accepted the direction of the camp psychologists as to who should or should not receive assistance. The bulk of their report focuses on the their information focus the focus group content.  The most often utilized a solution-focused approach (using eye movements to reinforce positive self-referencing statements) when working with individuals, although EMDR was used successfully with the few who requested it. The latter portion of the report includes three intriguing case studies. Lipke and Glang concluded what worked best is a combination of group and individual work that relied on psychoeducation, accessing positive as well as negative material, and not initially focusing on the trauma. This information should be useful to any practitioner who must overcome similar challenges.

The final article in this issue and this Volume VI in the first in the Innovations in Practice Section of the Journal. In this article Dr. Straton (2000) introduces us to the Phoenix Club, an innovative program of treatment for the unwanted emotional effects of childhood trauma. Straton first reviews the history of cathartic therapies to better understand the context and design of this program of treatment. The remarkable aspect of this report is that Straton has had no bad experiences, or as he puts it "casualties"  among the clients treated with their approach. Not a treatment for those who are psychotic or hypomanic or those who may be at risk of suicide, a relatively small percentage of those who seek treatment. He believes that there are several variables that may be the active ingredients to its apparent success and non-toxic nature: The quality of current relationships, the absence of clinical depression (not responsive to antidepressants), and adjusting the speed of group work to fit the individual. There is  no coercion or pressure of any sort. Straton believes, as I do, that most often people who want to heal know best how fast they can progress.

As we end one century it is my hope that the new twenty-first century will bring together those who study the traumatized with those who treat them. For too long traumatology has suffered as a field because there was so little interaction between these two entities. I will soon celebrate thirty years as a professor. Throughout my career I have attempted to be a scholar practitioner (i.e., adopting the "Bolder Model of psychology"). More than six years ago we initiated the "Active Ingredient Project" here at Florida State University to help bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. The Project continues but the gap between the two groups seems to have widened in the meantime, despite useful efforts by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. As Editor of this Journal I intend to focus additional energies in bridging this gap. I hope that the readership will join me in this effort.