Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation

As you look at this picture from New York, I'm sure you're wondering what it has to do with Northern Ireland. Later in this article, you'll see what ties it all together. The obvious connection we tend to miss is that trauma does not know national boundaries. It does not know one skin pigmentation from another. It does not know gender or sexual preference. PTSD is all inclusive.

PTSD does not just strike the individual exposed to the event. It hits everyone they come into contact with. Their families get hit with the blunt force of a sledge hammer as they understand their life has just changed because of an event they had nothing to do with.

In my case it was Vietnam. I was just a kid when that was going on, yet years later the Vietnam war changed my life when I met my husband.

For others it's the same story. Today we focus on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans coming home changed by the traumas of combat. What we don't realize is that there are thousands of people all over this country who meet these veterans without a single clue of what is coming with them. They fall in love without seeing the pain buried behind the smiles. I get contacted by people all the time who are just getting involved with combat veterans wondering what they can do for the veteran at the same time they are looking for help for themselves. They see past the pain seeing the whole person and they love them. They have seen their own lives change because of love.

For the people coming into contact with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, it's not much different. What is deep inside of them is still there but it's trapped behind the walls their mind has built to protect them from suffering more pain. Human nature always finds a way to inspire hope within them and they try to find happiness. They try to build relationships seeking what we all need as humans.

Sometimes the symptoms of PTSD arise years after the event. As you'll read later, people are still discovering that the events of 9-11 changed them the same way the events in Belfast changed the survivors there. It happens with any traumatic event. It's up to us to make sure that when we do come into contact with people wounded by the traumatic event that we hold their hand and take them to the help we know they need. kc

Horror, despair and how help came from Omagh

Thursday, 14 August 2008
While the Omagh outrage wreaked devastation its legacy has also helped others traumatised by horrific events around the globe. Kerry McKittrick hears about a unique form of cognitive therapy which was developed after the bomb


David Bolton is one of the founder members of the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation in Omagh where a special cognitive therapy, which is based on counselling, is used. He says:

The Omagh bomb was a different situation from something like the Enniskillen tragedy. When the Poppy Day bomb happened, there was very much a sense of ongoing war. With Omagh, there were ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement had been signed four months before. The Enniskillen bomb had revealed the obvious physical impact of a bomb, but we weren't sure what the psychological impact would be.

I got involved in Omagh an hour after the bomb went off. I led the team that was based in the local leisure centre that evening. It was being used as an information centre for relatives to go to. It was immediately clear that this was an appalling tragedy and that conventional services wouldn't be able to cope and additional ones would have to be laid on.

The Monday after the bomb, myself and my colleagues met with the then Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, to discuss what would be needed in terms of mental health. She asked us to present her with a plan within three weeks.

What happened was that the temporary group, the Omagh Community Trauma and Recovery Team, came into force on the Tuesday, three days after the bomb. At that point this was a multi-agency response, not just us but services like GPs as well. That group existed for three and a half years, and during that time we saw over 700 people. A large proportion of people came in with problems such as stress and mental health issues. Others came with practical problems such as unemployment. We were a group for mental health, but we didn't turn anyone away. We were an obvious first point of contact for people who needed help after the bomb.

In the early days we did studies into the impact of the bomb on the local people and their families. These studies were singularly important in how we approached people. They brought together the wisdom and experience of the local community, and the excellent work of the local services.



We were very lucky for with this information, and with the help of the cognitive therapy from Oxford University, we were able to develop a cognitive therapy technique tailored to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder people were suffering after the bomb.

The one event that sticks in my mind was when a schoolgirl brought her friend in by the hand and asked us if there was anything we could do for her. That particular moment made us all very emotional as it showed us how family and friends were reacting and supporting others through the tragedy.

The permanent centre, the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation, was driven by two main concerns.

The first was that the treatment developed would not be lost and the second was that there would something that came out of the tragedy that would make a contribution to all of the communities in need, not just Omagh. This is how our humanitarian work started.

We've developed our humanitarian work to bring the treatment to other places that needed it. I remember sitting in the office of the New York Fire Department after 9/11. We were looking out of the window at where the Twin Towers used to be, having a very moving conversation with members of the Fire Department and their clinicians.

It was this conversation that led us to invite representatives from the Fire Department, Police Department and Port Authority over here to see what we had done.
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