Beyond the Trauma Vortex: The Media’s Role in Healing Fear, Terror and Violence

In Beyond the Trauma Vortex, Gina Ross proposes a collaboration between the media, trauma researchers, and helping officials in order to break the vicious cycle of trauma and violence. The media, Ross suggests, can use their tremendous influence to promote peace rather than violence and to heal wounded psyches, communities, and nations. Delving first into the destructive nature of the "trauma vortex" through a variety of individual and historical examples, Ross then offers her insight into an alternate, restorative "healing vortex." By focusing on the interrelatedness of personal and collective healing, the author makes a compelling case for why--and how--media professionals can play an influential role in effecting widespread healing for their viewers and for themselves.

GINA ROSS, MFCC, is the founder and chair of the International Trauma- Healing Institute in the United States and the co-founder of the Israeli Trauma Center in Jerusalem. She specializes in trauma and has been involved in the understanding and treatment of trauma since 1990. She is trained in cognitive, behavioral, and somatic treatment approaches and is certified in the more innovative techniques of Somatic Experiencing (SE), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought Field Therapy (TFT), and Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR). She was the founder and chair for seven years of the Cross-Cultural Committee under the Los Angeles, California, Association of Marriage, Family, and Child Therapists (MFCT) and serves multicultural clientele from over 50 countries in her cross-cultural practice.

Ross is a faculty member and teacher/trainer for the Foundation for Human Enrichment; she has presented at international conferences and has also appeared on radio and television. Ross sees that the media plays an important role in the way trauma is perceived by individuals, communities, groups, and nations. She and her institute have undertaken the goal of putting and keeping the issue of trauma on the global agenda, and developing resources and collaborating with organizations to further the healing of trauma at the community, national, and international level. Currently, she is working with Israeli and Palestinian society, and particularly the media, to bring about understanding of the role of trauma and the political trauma vortex in Middle Eastern politics. She is developing a model to work at national levels that can be applied to other regions as well. She is the published author of several articles. Beyond the Trauma Vortex: The Media’s Role in Healing Fear, Terror, and Violence is her first book. Gina Ross can be reached at: ginaross@traumainstitute.org.