Dear ESTSS members,
The first half of 2022 shocked the world with a war in Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies is an expert organization on traumatic stress and actively responds by sharing expertise and knowledge to societal challenges. The activities of the ESTSS were aligned with the needs of war-affected societies and mental health professionals. ESTSS initiated an ESTSS action plan in response to war in Ukraine consequently. In response to War in Ukraine, ESTSS launched ESTSS4Ukraine webinar series and other activities.
European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies started the year 2022 looking forward to a post-COVID time with the possibility of returning to in-person meetings. The ESTSS in-person meetings in May, 2022 in Hamburg with Board and ESTSS pan-European COVID ADJUST research consortium meetings were inspiring meetings after couple of years of online meetings. These are exciting news as ESTSS needs in person meetings to have a more intensive and productive professional exchange in contrast to the online meetings.
The activity of ESTSS groups have been hindered by the ongoing pandemic. Still, multiple task force and special interest groups (SIG) have been active and working and various issues relevant to psychotraumatology. The most recent outcome was received from SIG on PTSD and Substance Abuse Co-morbid Condition Treatment which developed ESTSS guidelines on PTSD and co-morbid SUD treatments based on available evidence from research (N.Roberts, A.Lotzin, I.Schafer).
ESTSS is actively supporting young professionals. The ESTSS International Future Leadership Group, launched in 2019 in Rotterdam ended it’s term in the end of 2021. The call for a new FLG was distributed among ESTSS member societies and a new group of dedicated young professionals, PhD students and postdocs in their early career stages joined the ESTSS Future Leadership Group.
ESTSS is proud of the success of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (Editor-In-Chief prof. M.Olff) which is a highly ranked established scientific journal and an excellent open resource of knowledge on various aspects of psychotraumatology for researchers and clinicians from around the world.
ESTSS have been established in 1993, and next year we are going to celebrate 30th Anniversary. Over the last three decades, ESTSS have grown and changed. The field of psychotraumatology is constantly evolving. The need for knowledge on stress and trauma is growing. Over the 30 years ESTSS achieved a lot in bringing up professionals from across Europe and world together and disseminating knowledge on all aspects of psychotraumatology.
Prof. Evaldas Kazlauskas
ESTSS President (2021-2022)
