Ingo Schäfer, Manoëlle Hopchet, Naomi Vandamme, Dean Ajdukovic, Wissam El-Hage, Laurine Egreteau, Jana Darejan Javakhishvili, Nino Makhashvili, Astrid Lampe, Vittoria Ardino, Evaldas Kazlauskas, Joanne Mouthaan, Marit Sijbrandij, Małgorzata Dragan, Maja Lis-Turlejska, Margarida Figueiredo-Braga, Luísa Sales, Filip Arnberg, Tetiana Nazarenko, Natalia Nalyvaiko, Cherie Armour, Dominic Murphy
Author Information
Ingo Schäfer: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
Manoëlle Hopchet: Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology, Brussels, Belgium.
Naomi Vandamme: Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology, Trauma Center Limburg, Hasselt, Belgium.
Dean Ajdukovic: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Wissam El-Hage: UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, CHRU de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France.
Laurine Egreteau: Laurine Egreteau, CHRU de Tours, Clinique Psychiatrique Universitaire, Tours, France.
Jana Darejan Javakhishvili: Institute of Addiction Studies, Faculty of Arts and Science, ILia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Nino Makhashvili: Business School, ILia State University, Tblisi, Georgia.
Astrid Lampe: Department of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University Medical Hospital Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Vittoria Ardino: Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Uomo, Urbino University, Urbino, Italy.
Evaldas Kazlauskas: Center for Psychotraumatology, Institute of Psychology, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania. ORCID
Joanne Mouthaan: Department Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Marit Sijbrandij: Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ORCID
Małgorzata Dragan: Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. ORCID
Maja Lis-Turlejska: Faculty of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland.
Margarida Figueiredo-Braga: Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal. ORCID
Luísa Sales: Department of Psychiatry of the Military Hospital of Coimbra, Centre of Trauma (CES) of the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Filip Arnberg: National Centre for Disaster Psychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. ORCID
Tetiana Nazarenko: Non-Governmental organization 'Ukrainian Society of Overcoming the Consequences of Traumatic Events' (USOCTE), Kyiv, Ukraine.
Natalia Nalyvaiko: International Institute of Depth Psychology, Non-Governmental organization 'Ukrainian Society of Overcoming the Consequences of Traumatic Events' (USOCTE), Kyiv, Ukraine.
Cherie Armour: School of Psychology, Institute of Mental Health Sciences, Faculty of Life & Health Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK. ORCID
Dominic Murphy: Research Department, Combat Stress, Leatherhead, UK & King's Centre for Military Health Research, Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College London, London, UK. ORCID
The European countries have a long history of exposure to large-scale trauma. In the early 1990s the increasing awareness of the consequences of trauma within the mental health community led to the foundation of local societies for psychotraumatology across Europe and the European Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018. The focus of this article is to describe the current state of care for survivors of trauma in the 15 European countries where ESTSS member societies have been established. Brief descriptions on the historical burden of trauma in each country are followed by an overview of the care system for trauma survivors in the countries, the state-of-the-art of interventions, current challenges in caring for survivors and the topics that need to be most urgently addressed in the future. The reports from the different countries demonstrate how important steps towards a better provision of care for survivors of trauma have been made in Europe. Given the cultural and economic diversity of the continent, there are also differences between the European countries, for instance with regard to the use of evidence-based treatments. Strategies to overcome these differences, like the new ESTSS training curricula for care-providers across Europe, are briefly discussed.
