Prior to the conference, 11 pre-conference workshops were held with 250 participants. The workshops covered psychological treatments methods and assessment methods, research methods and alternative treatments, and they were outstanding opportunities to learn from skilled professionals.
The 550 participants for the three conference days came from 30 different countries, covering six different continents. The diversity of the conference was also reflected in the many different subjects presented in symposia, poster presentations and keynote speakers.
The focus was on a range of traumatic responses, for example in survivors of accidental traumatic experiences, life-threatening disease, catastrophes, veterans and refugees.
440 abstracts were accepted and presented along with more than 100 posters. More than 80 symposia based on the accepted abstracts were divided into twelve subject-tracks, covering work related trauma, refugees, a broad perspective on traumatic stress reactions, trauma treatment, child maltreatment, child trauma treatment and trauma in a global perspective.
The word ‘symposium’ descends from the Greek symposion and the Latin symposium, both of which refer to a meeting where professionals discuss a scientific subject. Since this was exactly the case at the conference symposia, this special word was used to describe the grouped presentations.
At each symposium, one of the presenters were named chairman and had the task of introducing himself and the other presenters before the symposium started.
The conference participants could navigate freely between tracks of symposia, since they required no sign-ups. This created the possibility of following a personal and/or professional interest, as well as the possibility of acquiring knowledge about different parts of trauma research.
If you are interested in a visual overview of the conference, you can download the abstract book as well as an overview of the symposia using the boxes in the upper right corner.