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

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.