Psychological Debriefing: Theory, Practice and Evidence
The history of psychological trauma is littered with episodes of knowledge and forgetting, just as post-trauma memory is scattered with episodes of remembering and amnesia. This authoritative text goes some way towards the prevention of the threatened but premature death-knell for psychological debriefing. Few issues in mental health are as controversial as psychological debriefing, with polarised views common. The term ‘psychological debriefing’ has been used for different types of intervention, and this book highlights the range of conceptualisations, methodologies and interventions that constitute the area of debriefing, with single sessions superseded by critical-incident stress management (the Cochrane Collaboration review examined only randomised controlled trials incorporating one-off sessions (Rose et al, 2001)).
The editors, Raphael & Wilson, have an impressive track record in their International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes (1993), a seminal text on psychological trauma. Here, they precede each chapter with an editorial commentary, which provides a helpful overview.