It took a lot of organisation — a good deal more than bargained for — to get eight British, German and American journalists together for a day to talk trauma in Berlin, with senior international trauma experts in attendance to give the gathering scientific weight.

But it was worth it, and after an intense round of discussions that ranged from Germany’s continued experience of war trauma to the impact of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and of course the Iraq war, it was agreed by all that there’s much valuable and urgently needed work for Dart to do with European journalists and journalism.

In Britain, Reuters and the BBC are pioneering trauma support for their journalists. Trade publications such as the Press Gazette and the Media Guardian are increasingly writing about trauma as subject worth studying and a story worth covering.

But in Germany, journalists who don’t want to cover war are still on occasion being sacked for being “too soft”, and Dart presentations in the body of the ESTSS conference — one by Bruce Shapiro and Elana Newman from Dart US, and one by myself and partner Sue Brayne on the personal experience of journalists covering trauma — brought home how far there is to go.

The Dart Europe Berlin day was modelled on the Dart US’s annual Fellow programme for mid-career journalists visiting the International Traumatic Stress conference — last year in Baltimore, this year in Chicago — but as yet without the same formal application and selection process.

For the next ESTSS, in Stockholm in 2005, Dart hopes to have a more substantial and formal programme — and to bring together journalists from a wider range of European countries.

On this occasion, the day brought together the following:
Reuters’ Global News Editor Stephen Jukes and chief Paris Correspondent Tom Heneghan; from the BBC, TV producer Alex Milner and Deputy Editor of the acclaimed TV current affairs programme Andy Bell; Julie Tomlin came as new Features Editor from the London-based UK Press Gazette; Valentin Areh, Slovenia’s best-known television war correspondent, was there from Pop TV in Ljubljana; and from Germany, the group was completed by freelance TV producers Ulla Froehling and Walter Brun.

Among those joining the group to talk of the wider context of trauma understanding was prominent German war trauma specialist Peter Heinl, whose powerful book Splintered Innocence is reviewed elsewhere on this site.
Peter Heinl works intuitively with Germans whose traumatic memories of war and displacement can’t be expressed in words – and his findings remind us how unprocessed or unacknowledged trauma ricochets down through the generations.

Jonathan Shay, psychotherapist and author of powerful books on Vietnam war trauma (Odysseus in America), reminded the group of the importance in particular of sleep, for journalists as for soldiers, with studies showing how military performance falls off dramatically after only a few sleep-deprived days.

Doug Bremner, one of the world’s most prominent neuroscientists and author of Does Stress Damage the Brain, spoke of new brain scanning technology which shows how trauma can literally reduce the size of the key emotion-processing hippocampus.

The Dart group in Berlin was also briefed by Northern Ireland psychiatrist Oscar Daly on the outcome of a landmark court ruling in Britain that very same day concerning Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among British service veterans of the Falklands and first Gulf wars.

The court dismissed most of the veterans’ class action claims, determining that the British Ministry of Defence does not have a duty to identify post-traumatic stress reactions among soldiers who do not report the symptoms themselves.

While disappointing for the plaintiffs, who had expected to win, the case still establishes important legal precedents in Britain, where organisations which put their staff in harm’s way as part of their official duties know that they risk being taken to court if insufficient attention is paid to preparing them for the experience of trauma.

That was a point given emphasis by a study from Hamburg University reported at the ESTSS conference which found very similar levels of PTSD among war reporters — up to 28% — as those determined by Anthony Feinstein’s pioneering research published in 2002.

Author Frauke Teegen has, however, taken the investigation further, finding in her survey that war journalists have as a group experienced striking levels of trauma in early and previous life – one explanation, she suggests, for a disturbingly high level among many of dangerous risk-taking behaviour.

After a day of discussion, the Berlin Dart group came up with a number of key issues which they want Dart Europe and Dart US to take forward:

— More networking, with the possibility of a programme of Dart Europe membership;

— More attention to be paid to the print media in Britain and Europe, which have been notably slower than broadcast and news agency organisations to understand the need for trauma training and support;

— Better links with journalism training departments in both organisations and universities/colleges;

— Better links with specialist correspondents covering medical and social affairs;

— The value of closer connections with non-governmental organisations such as Oxfam and the Red Cross, facilitating discussion and debate about shared experience;

— And inclusion in Dart’s agenda of the delicate issue of how to tell families of the death of colleagues and loved-ones.

After a year or so in trial operation, Dart Europe is now taking stock where it needs to go next, and how that will best be done organisationally. There’ll be more news in the coming weeks…