The Dart Centre's one-and-a-half-day workshop in Stockholm, June 17-18, included news managers, trainers, heads of journalism schools, foreign correspondents, investigative journalists, local reporters and a cameraman.

They came from Russia, France, Turkey, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US to discuss the impact of trauma—on media workers, managers and trainers, and on the communities and nations about which journalists report.

Mark Brayne, the Dart Centre's Director in Europe

Mark Brayne, the Dart Centre's director in Europe, opened the workshop with the observation that "journalists who have an element of self awareness can both fare better and write better."

During the workshop, participants shared personal experiences and brainstormed ideas for building awareness of journalism and trauma issues.

They highlighted the need for resources for local journalists who cover local news of trauma—crime and car accidents, for example—or investigative journalists putting themselves on the line in a variety of ways.

They also cited a need for more culturally specific material as the Dart Centre takes its ideas to countries such as Turkey or Russia.

Stephen Jukes, head of Bournemouth Media School in the UK, emphasised the need to develop more trauma-aware curricula in journalism schools.

Kaare Melhus of the Gimlekollen School of Journalism in Norway noted that curriculae also need to be culturally sensitive. "How do you teach journalism to students in Kosovo while the Mafia are continuously sending death threats to journalists," he asked. Melhus has already helped set up a school of journalism in Ethiopia, and is now preparing for the launch of a similar school in Kosovo.

Mervyn Jess, from BBC Northern Ireland, suggested that managers in news organisations create 'talking spaces'. "In the old days," said Jess, "after an event or incident, we would all go to the pub. In the 90s, it was drinking and journalism. Now this is frowned upon, but that means that the avenues of discussion are no longer there. Everyone is working harder and there is less time and no space."

Alex Gerlis, from BBC Journalism and Training Development, suggested setting up training councils with core teaching materials. "We need to have qualifications for journalists - people should perhaps not just be able to call themselves journalists just like that."

Along the same lines, Brayne suggested introducing to journalism the concept of “Continuing Professional Development,” already taken for granted in other professional fields such as law, medicine and psychotherapy.

As the workshop took place on the eve of the conference of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), the group also benefited from the presence in Stockholm of some of the world's leading experts on trauma.

Anthony Feinstein, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, had found that people who work with images are more at risk than those who work with words—the visual (photojournalist) vs narrative (print journalist) debate.

Leon Malherbe, a South African cameraman attending the Stockholm Dart workshop from the Reuters news agency, agreed with the findings, adding that "a camera person needs to always be closer to the action to get a better image."

The group discussed how the writing process can help give structure to confused and traumatic events—but what do video and photo journalists do?

Malherbe described a method he had developed for himself "to keep sane," as he put it. On returning home from covering wars, Malherbe said, he would happen to come across a song that managed to capture his emotions—it could be anything from Guns'n'Roses to a song he hears on the radio. Once the song is settled, he goes through all his footage and cuts the images to the music. "There's something healing about cutting images to music," he said. This process helps to "lock emotions into the image," giving a more coherent visual structure to images that are raw, traumatising and unprocessed.

Processing thoughts following a traumatic event is very important, explained Jonathan Bisson, senior lecturer in psychiatry at University Hospital of Wales, while introducing the new British national guidelines on trauma. "Trauma is stored in the memory without being properly processed. Talking and thinking about it fills it in more properly," he said.

He described an analogy - "the matchbox trick" - to illustrate unprocessed and processed thoughts following a traumatic event. "A magician's silk scarf is stuffed into a matchbox," he explained, "If you open the matchbox, it jumps out in a chaotic manner. If you then fold the scarf up neatly, it fits into the matchbox and does not jump out."

Setting up structures in the workplace to deal with mental health issues is increasingly important, said Neil Greenberg, Surgeon Commander in Britain 's Royal Navy.

Greenberg has been a leader in the introduction to Britain's armed forces and police of a system known as Trauma Risk Management (TRiM), based on peers supporting each other. For people who work in a team, Greenberg emphasised that "a unit that functions well and has morale is more protected and suffers less (psychological) casualties."

"[TRiM] is based on the sound fact that all military personnel must be recognised as an 'at risk' group," he said. "Organisations which put their personnel in harm's way have a moral, legal and economic obligation to act. TriM doesn't aim to be a cure, but does aim to assess risk and needs and inform managers. The TRiM model is now also being used at the BBC as part of its own trauma risk management programme.

"Each organisation needs to have a plan before an event happens," Greenberg said.