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HomeNew Resource on Trauma Studies Available
March 13, 2008
The UO Department of Psychology and the UO Libraries have teamed up to create an important new digital collection of ground-breaking medical and scientific literature in the field of dissociation and trauma. Dissociation and Trauma Archives contains the full text of many articles appearing in key journals published between 1862 and 1922.
"The early history of trauma studies is of critical importance to contemporary research," says Jennifer Freyd, professor of psychology at the UO and an expert in psychological trauma. "By reading historical reports and analyses of childhood trauma from the past, we can discover not only how trauma impacts children and the adults they become but also how the cultural and historical context molds our approach to questions and issues about this condition."
The articles in the archive include several from early French publications. The text of the articles is fully searchable, and the archives can be browsed by article title, journal, and author. Additional articles will be digitized and added to the archive over the next few months.
Several links to more recent journals and specialized resources are also provided, including all articles published from 1988 to 1997 in the seminal journal Dissociation: Progress in the Dissociative Disorders, along with links to material related to the life and work of Pierre Janet, an early pioneer in the field of trauma studies.
Dissociation and Trauma Archives was developed in part during a graduate psychology class, Childhood Trauma, taught by Freyd. Freyd's colleague Frank Putnam, M.D., was also a major contributor to the project.
Barbara Jenkins, head of reference and psychology subject specialist for the UO Libraries, worked closely with Freyd to identify and access the materials for the archives. "These historical resources in a specialized area such as dissociation and trauma are often scattered and difficult to locate," Jenkins says. "I was drawn to the challenge of helping Freyd and her students locate the items and assess their suitability for inclusion in the archives. The involvement of the graduate students in the process facilitated the development of the resource and enhanced their research experience."
Karen Estlund, the library's digital collections coordinator, and other members of the library's Metadata Services and Digital Projects staff digitized the content and developed the interface for the archives. The library hosts the archives as part of its Digital Collections, making it available online to a global community of students and researchers.
Contact Estlund (541-346-1845, kestlund@uoregon.edu) for information on the library's digital collections. For more information on Dissociation and Trauma Archives, contact Freyd (541-346-4929, jjf@uoregon.edu).