This article investigates Sarah Kane’s Blasted (1995) through Dominick LaCapra’s concept of ‘empathic unsettlement’, analyzing how the play transforms theatrical spectatorship into an ethical confrontation with violence. Kane’s ‘in-yer-face’ dramaturgy dismantles naturalistic boundaries, collapsing a private hotel room into a war-torn landscape where the personal and political fuse in a relentless exposure of brutality. Drawing on LaCapra’s distinction between ‘acting out’ and ‘working through’, the discussion explores how Kane converts trauma from representation to experience, compelling audiences to oscillate between immersion and reflection. Ian’s progression from perpetrator to victim, his detached journalism, and the play’s fragmentation of time and space collectively enact an ethics of witnessing that resists voyeurism and moral closure. By situating Kane’s theatre within debates on trauma, spectatorship, and media desensitization, including the ideas of Susan Sontag and Judith Butler, the article argues that Blasted teaches empathy through discomfort, inserting the passivity of spectators and demanding moral responsiveness. In doing so, Kane redefines theatrical realism not as a mirror of violence but as a site where empathy, horror, and ethical awareness co-exist in productive tension.

This article argues that to be morally acceptable, in addition to adhering to existing legal and ethical frameworks, war should hurt the individuals who conduct it. The article uses the example of drone warfare considering why/how this type of conflict is considered (un)ethical. Finding existing frameworks insufficient, the article suggests the addition of a feminist ethics of care. This framework provides the necessary nuance to both better empirically describe the context of ethical decision-making within war and a language, beyond that of trauma, through which to understand how and why killing is and should be hard to do. A feminist ethics of care enables a stronger engagement with the messiness and complexity of making moral judgements about harm, action/inaction, and death in warfare. From this, the article argues for a specific form of ‘hurt’ as the necessary result of ethical lethal action in drone warfare, drawing on notions of relationality, particularity, and response-ability. Differentiating from post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury, the article argues that ‘hurt’ better represents the professional gravitas with which we want service personnel to operate.

This article examines the reintegration of children and women captured from areas formerly controlled by the so-called Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, and subsequently repatriated to Central Asian States, through the lens of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) integrated protection and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) approach. Drawing on mixed methods, it combines routine pre- and post-intervention data from DASS-21 and Paediatric Emotional Distress Scale (PEDS) assessments of fifty-two participants with semi-structured interviews with seven repatriated women and six psychologists involved in ICRC-supported MHPSS services.

Quantitative findings indicate reductions in overall psychological distress across adults, adolescents and younger children during a period in which they received integrated protection–MHPSS support. Qualitative narratives complement these results by illustrating how participants experienced these improvements, while also highlighting persistent challenges related to the weight of memory, separation from family members left behind, ambiguous loss, stigma and social difficulties. The study contributes to the limited empirical literature on post-return trajectories by highlighting the role of receiving families and communities in fostering acceptance of returnees and reducing stigma, the need for long-term support for both returnee families and front-line practitioners, and the importance of integrating mental health and psychosocial considerations into national reintegration frameworks.

The article argues that protection measures – aiming to ensure that the rights and dignity of returnees are upheld, their legal and administrative issues are addressed, and their family links are protected – and layered MHPSS care supporting emotional well-being and psychological recovery are operationally interdependent and can be mutually reinforcing in practice. It suggests that integrated approaches may offer a relevant framework for addressing the layered vulnerabilities experienced by these populations, as responses are more likely to match the depth and complexity of their needs when protection and MHPSS are implemented in a coordinated manner. By documenting the experiences of returnees and practitioners, the article offers operational insights into integrated protection–MHPSS strategies for people affected by conflict and reflects the ICRC’s engagement in supporting the safe, dignified and rights-based reintegration of returnee children and women.

Early (before age 6) potentially traumatic events (PTEs) may interact with hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning to shape outcomes involving externalizing problems and anxiety. However, directions of effects remain unclear. This study examined associations between aspects of HPA axis reactivity, anxiety, and externalizing problems over two years by early PTE exposure history, while statistically capturing the co-occurrence of symptom domains. Youth (N = 189; Mage = 10.96 years, SD = 2.51, Range = 8–15; 52.4% female, 47.1% male; 50.3% White, 35.4% Black/African American, 6.4% Other; 7.4% Hispanic/Latine) were included if they had early PTE exposure (n = 107) or had never experienced a PTE (n = 82). HPA axis reactivity to social stress was calculated using area under the curve with respect to ground (AUCg) and increase (AUCi). For youth with early PTE exposure, higher AUCg was concurrently associated with more externalizing symptoms and greater predominance of externalizing over anxiety. Blunted AUCi predicted increasing predominance of externalizing for the early PTE group, but elevated AUCi predicted increases in anxiety for the no PTE group. Findings highlight distinct roles of overall and reactive HPA axis functioning in shaping outcomes following early trauma.

As trauma-informed care (TIC) becomes more integrated into healthcare systems, consistent and meaningful evaluation remains limited. Educational interventions are central to implementation, yet outcome measures vary widely. This scoping review systematically mapped outcome measures used to evaluate TIC educational interventions in healthcare settings to identify current practices, methodological gaps and opportunities for more coherent and context-sensitive assessment. The review followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Five databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC) were searched from database inception to October 2024. Eligible studies described TIC educational interventions for healthcare providers and reported at least one outcome related to knowledge, attitudes, confidence, competence, or behavior. Two reviewers independently screened and extracted data on study design, participants, intervention characteristics and outcome measures. Outcomes were categorized using Moore’s Expanded Outcomes Framework, which includes seven hierarchical levels from participation to patient or community health outcomes. Twenty-eight studies met inclusion criteria, most published after 2020 and conducted in the United States. Outcome measurement was dominated by self-reported data, primarily custom pre–post surveys assessing knowledge, confidence or attitudes. Only eight studies used validated tools, most commonly the ARTIC-35 or ARTIC-45. Few assessed behavioral or system-level change, and none directly measured patient outcomes. Educational formats ranged from brief online modules to multi-session interdisciplinary trainings. A small subset explored relational or equity-oriented outcomes such as empathy or cultural humility, often using qualitative methods. This review highlights the field’s reliance on short-term, self-reported outcomes and limited use of validated or standardized measures. Developing accessible, equity-informed tools that capture behavioral and system-level change is essential to advance research, guide policy and sustain trauma-informed transformation across healthcare systems.

This article revisits the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong through the lens of trauma. It argues that both the pro-democracy and pro-government camps framed themselves as victims and engaged in dehumanizing and infra-humanizing narratives, intensifying conflict and emotional harm. Although the movement ended with the National Security Law and the COVID-19 outbreak, the trauma remains unresolved. Post-movement policies, especially in education, have often exacerbated rather than healed the divisions. This study calls for government-led reconciliation efforts to move beyond mutual victimhood and foster genuine recovery for Hong Kong society.