In drawing together the themes of trauma and disaster that appear in this volume, the authors have provided a valuable and creative stimulus to our knowledge of the human chaos that occurs when individuals and communities are exposed to horrific and life threatening situations. This work makes a unique contribution in its integration of disaster, war and other trauma studies. In identifying common themes such as the nature of traumatic stress in accidents, disasters, and technological incidents, and the impact of such traumatic encounters with death, some of the aetiological processes underlying the effects of such trauma can be understood. These findings, integrating the contributions of many of the senior workers in the field, set in place a framework for the understanding of the trauma per se and its management. Each contributor brings not only a sound scientific appraisal but the wisdom and compassion of clinical understanding.

Psychosocial contexts, as well as culture, are identified as important modulating processes – they may be reflected in: the support which may buffer and facilitate working through and integration of the stressor experience; the form and pattern of community responses and their effects; the secondary trauma of relocation; the dislocation and disruption of social frameworks; and the social movements of professional support and debriefing.

Traumata are best understood when the responses are considered across individual, group, family and community perspectives; and from the vantage point of developmental systems from childhood to older adult life.