Live Long and Prosper, Journal of Trauma & Dissociation

I first became Editor of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation (JTD) with Volume 7, published in 2006. Due to the lag inherent in publication schedules, I began working as editor of JTD beginning during the calendar year 2005. I recently went back and read my first JTD editorial (“Long Live the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation:” Freyd, 2006), drafted in the fall of 2005 and published in the first issue of 2006.

I opened that first editorial with this paragraph:

From its very first issue this has been my favorite journal to read, and one I depend on for my education and my own research. Most other journals stack up on my desk and get shelved in my office, often with only a skimming of the abstracts, but the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation (JTD) gets read cover to cover shortly after it appears in my mailbox, issue after issue. Why? Of course, the topics of trauma and dissociation are fascinating and of deep importance to the human condition. But more, the papers in JTD are not formulaic; rather they are creative, insightful, and diverse. It was with great honor and excitement that I accepted the invitation to become the Editor of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.

Those words I wrote 18 years ago remain true for me today. It has truly been my great honor to have served as Editor for JTD all these years. Yet, the time has come for me to step down from this role as life has pulled me in new directions. This issue of JTD – Issue #5 of Volume 24 to be published in the fall of 2023 – is the last issue for which I will have formally served as Editor.

Beginning with Issue #1 of Volume 25 to be published in 2024, JTD will have a new editor. The selection of a new Editor was handled by the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). I announced my decision to step down in January 2023 and ISSTD created a Working Group to select the new editor. In June of 2023 ISSTD let me know that the incoming Editor is Dr. Julian Ford. Dr. Ford is the Director, Center for Trauma Recovery, and Juvenile Justice and Professor, Department of Psychiatry and School of Law, at the University of Connecticut. Ford has been serving as an Associate Editor for JTD for many years and has been a major contributor to both JTD and the field. JTD is in excellent hands and I look forward to watching JTD prosper in the years ahead.

Beginning with Issue #1 of Volume 25, JTD will also have a new Editorial Assistant, as Editorial Associate Dr. Alec Smidt, who has worked with great skill and dedication to bring each issue of JTD into our hands, is also stepping down from his role after many years of service the journal. The new Editorial Assistant for JTD for Volume 25 be Christine Kopcyk.

There are so many people who have made my editorship possible and to whom I feel great gratitude and appreciation. This includes the talented and dedicated Associated Editors and Editorial Boards, the ad hoc reviewers, the staff at ISSTD and our publishers (first Haworth and then Taylor & Francis) and especially the Editorial Assistants and most recently Editorial Associate Dr. Alec Smidt. To each of you: I am deeply grateful for your contributions and for making the job of JTD Editor meaningful and joyful.

State of the journal

During the last 12 months, the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation has continued to flourish. Our impact has been substantial as measured by our 2022 Impact Factor (calculated by Clarivate) at 3.3, and also by our high rank on various lists of influential scholarly journals. In 2022 there were over 212,000 downloads of JTD articles. This growing impact of JTD is due to the high quality of the articles, which is in turn dependent upon the evaluative work of our Editorial Board and ad hoc reviewers. Thank you to all. And thank you as well Taylor & Francis for providing an annual cash award for a particularly excellent publication in JTD and to Dr. Bethany Brand for her excellent work as Chair of the Awards Committee.

The Richard P. Kluft Award for the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 2022 Best Article was awarded to Simeon and Putnam (2022) for “Pathological Dissociation in The National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R): Prevalence, Morbidity, Comorbidity, and Childhood Maltreatment.” The Awards Committee explained:

This paper was repeatedly nominated because the field of dissociative disorders (DD) needs more research about the prevalence of those disorders utilizing data from well-known and respectable databases such as the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Their results (of 4.1%) indicates that the prevalence of DD is considerable and that the clinical profile of those individuals suggest marked impairment. Additionally, the finding of a robust relationship between childhood maltreatment and DD in a national sample is clearly a confirmation that DD are intimately related to traumatic stress.

The awards committee also selected three additional 2022 articles for Honorable Mention:

1. Cardeña et al. (2022) for “A network analysis to identify associations between PTSD and dissociation among teenagers.” The Awards Committee noted:

This paper addresses a serious clinical issue that has been growing in practice with adolescents. The levels of pathological dissociation in adolescent populations that are now present in clinical practice are significantly impacting service availability, and many practitioners are struggling to determine the best treatment plans given the comorbidity between PTSD and dissociation, especially after the impact of the pandemic, racial and LGBT oppression and violence, and the increased rates of abuse and neglect reported. The paper provides guidance for treatment providers, as well as gives a roadmap for future research on refining diagnosis, assessment, and treatment for adolescents.

2. Cheit (2022) for “Hyping Hypnosis: The Myth That Made Capturing the Friedmans Persuasive.” The Awards Committee noted:

This article analyzes the impact of the movie, Capturing the Friedmans, and links it with “false memory syndrome” tactics and arguments about the supposed false memories created by hypnosis. The author provides a detailed analysis of exaggerations and misrepresentations in the movie that convey the sense that the Friedmans, who are a father and son who pled guilty to sexually abusing boys in their basement, were wrongly convicted. The article makes it clear that hypnosis was not responsible for creating memories of sexual abuse by the Friedmans. Cheit clarifies the factual events surrounding the oversights and distortions in this film, and reviews the actual facts in the legal case. The paper sets the record straight that the Friedmans were guilty of sexual abuse of boys. Our field needed this paper and so does a wider audience.

3. Leah et al. (2022) for “An examination of ACEs, the internalization of the Superwoman Schema, and mental health outcomes among Black adult women.” The Awards Committee noted:

The link between ACEs on mental health is well-documented. In this article, the inclusion of the Superwoman Schema, an internalized cultural script, is important in multiple ways: 1) the study identifies how ACEs and the internalized Superwoman Schema jointly negatively impact Black women’s mental health, which has implications for culturally congruent and trauma-informed clinical interventions; and 2) on a meta-level, this article can pave the way for future research to meaningfully theoretically and empirically include relevant cultural scripts into diverse populations, thus improving our understanding of how culture and context impact trauma survivors and their mental health.

In addition to publishing regular issues, the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation publishes special issues that focus on a particular topic and usually are guest edited. In 2023 JTD published a particularly timely and important guest-edited special issue:

“Trauma, Violence, & Reproductive Rights” with Special Issue Guest Editors: Heather McCauley, Maria-Ernestina Christl, & Anne DePrince, published in the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 24(4), 2023.

As McCauley et al. (2023) explain in their opening editorial for the special issue, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision in 2022, it was particularly important for researchers working on intimate violence to focus attention on the intersection of trauma and reproductive rights. McCauley et al. (2023) wrote regarding the Dobbs decision:

It was our sense at the time – and remains so today – that research would be critical to revealing the scope of the problem of reproductive coercion at this time of enormous policy change. Furthermore, we believed that trauma science and practice has an especially important role to play because of the field’s approach to understanding that individual, community, and system dynamics work together to shape risk for, response to, and healing from traumatic stress … . Thus, this Special Issue of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation (JTD) explores the intersection of trauma, violence, and reproductive rights.

I am proud of this most recent JTD special issue and the many other regular and special issues of JTD for addressing matters that are of great importance to science and society. I believe JTD helps make the world a better place through rigorous science and scholarship that is relevant to some of our most pressing challenges.

Although I will no longer be Editor of JTD after 2023, I will eagerly read each issue of this remarkable journal. Live long and prosper, Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.