The Daily Progress
Charlottesville, Virginia

Conference to focus on trauma treatment

By Claudia Pinto
Daily Progress staff writer



A doctor will take every precaution to heal a physical wound – thoroughly cleaning it, dulling the pain it causes with anesthetic and carefully closing it with stitches.
But that doctor may have no idea how to treat emotional wounds a patient has suffered.
That's why Therapeutic Spiral International, a local nonprofit group, is holding a conference to educate professionals on how to deal with trauma victims.
"We are trying to take information that has been limited to therapy sessions and bring it to the public," said Kate Hudgins, the founder and director of training at Therapeutic Spiral International.
The eight-day conference, dubbed Action Against Trauma: A Post-Violence training and Development Program for Community Workers, will take place Nov. 10-17. It will provide 20 Virginians with free training and lodging at the English Inn in Charlottesville.
Conference officials hope that professionals who frequently encounter people whose lives have been devastated will apply to attend. These professions include firefighters, emergency medical technicians, police officers, physicians, teachers, and social service employees.
"Sometimes the people who deal with traumatic situations aren't prepared to deal with the people affected," Hudgins said.
The conference is being funded, in part, by an $11,500 grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. It will be taught by a team of 15 people including psychologists, social workers, nurses and humanities scholars.
Ishmail Conway, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, will be one of the instructors. He will serve on a panel addressing the issue of violence.
"Violence in America is as inevitable as the Fourth of July," Conway said. "So in our own society, we have to learn to cope with it in sustainable ways."
People who attend the conference will learn about post-traumatic stress syndrome - a psychiatric disorder that can cause flashbacks, sleeplessness, intense fear and a sense of helplessness. They also will learn how to help people deal with the disorder and how they can avoid physical burnout as a result of caregiving.
"Violence left unattended creates fear and dismay and helplessness in communities," Conway said. "The attention to it will hopefully serve as a part of a process to lower the threshold of that anxiety."

The application deadline for the conference is Sept. 5. For application information, call Therapeutic Spiral International at 923-8290 or go to www.therapeuticspiral.org.