Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress
The ET lab is an active participant in the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress (GC-TS). The GC-TS brings together researchers and clinicians from around the world who collaborate on topics of global importance related to cross-cultural experiences of traumatic stress. Lab members are actively involved in GC-TS projects and Dr. Williamson serves as the co-chair for the Climate Change workgroup.
Representative Publications:
- Vergunst, F., Williamson, R. E., Mazzazza, A., Berry, H., Olff, M. (in press). Definitions and scope of the mental health burden of global climate change. Nature Mental Health.
- Salimi, Y., Hoeboer, C., Haghi, S. M., Williamson, R. E., Rahimi, M. D., Rajabi-Gilan, N., Almasi, A., Olff, M. (2023). Trauma and its consequences in Iran: Cross-cultural adaption and validation of the Global Psychotrauma Screen in a representative sample. BMC Psychiatry, 23(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-04564-8
- Williamson, R. E., Hoeboer, C., Primasari, I., Qing, Y., Coimbra, B., Hovnanyan, A., Grace, E., & Olff, M. (2021). Symptom Networks of COVID-19-Related Versus Other Potentially Traumatic Events in a Global Sample. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 84(3):102476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102476
- Olff, M., Primasari, I., Qing, Y., Coimbra, B., Hovnanyan, A., Grace, E., Williamson, R. E., & Hoeboer, C. (2021). Mental health responses to COVID-19 around the world. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1929754
Climate Change
The intersection of climate and mental health is an exciting and emergent line of research in the lab, representing a topical extension and application of previous theoretical and empirical work. Given the uniqueness of climate change as a non-discrete event that creates a cascade of PTEs both within and outside of circumscribed diagnoses, the ET lab is well-equipped to investigate the complexity of this contemporary global issue.
Sexual Violence
Projects explore the existential impact of experiences of and exposure to sexual and gender-based violence, including widespread coverage of the MeToo movement, reproductive coercion and abortion restrictions.
Representative Publications:
- Williamson, R. E., Hardt, S., Courtney, E. P., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2024). Sexual Victimization and the Existential Impact of #MeToo. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167824123494
- Williamson, R. E., Courtney, E. P., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2022). Fetch the Boltcutters: the Existential Labor and Liberation of #MeToo. The Humanistic Psychologist: Special Issue on Women in Humanistic Psychology, 50(3), 443. https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000289
Perpetrator Trauma
This research builds on a developed theory of traumatic dissonance, which describes the socio-cognitive mechanisms responsible for traumatic responses to one's own act of perpetration. This model supports existing research documenting the potential psychological impact of certain acts of perpetration but re-conceptualizes the phenomenon in terms of general existential motivations.
Representative Publication:
- Williamson, R. E., Reed II, D. E., & Wickham, R. E. (2020). A traumatic dissonance theory of perpetrator-related distress. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology. 2020;00: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts5.59