Dear ISSTD community,
Next month is our ISSTD Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, with pre-conference workshops on April 13 and 14 before the conference runs from April 15 to 17. The conference is very much a labor of love for our hard-working staff, Conference Committee and the many volunteers who make the conference possible. Please be sure to register if you haven’t already.
Trauma science and clinical experience affirm again and again the importance of face-to-face human interaction in the development of personal relationships and community. The covid-19 pandemic bought with it a second pandemic of isolation and loneliness that continues to reverberate and was acutely felt by people living with trauma and dissociative conditions.
The annual conference is, of course, a way to stay abreast of new developments in the field and gain new skills and insights that can be applied in our professional lives. However, as people who work with and are exposed to traumatic material every day, our annual conference brings us together as a Society: to reconnect with friends and colleagues, meet new people and reinvigorate our shared purpose.
Some of us are out of practice. The pandemic forced many organizations, including the ISSTD, to pivot to online conferences and virtual training. The idea of traveling interstate or internationally for a conference seems like a lot of effort after the last few years. But there is no substitute for the sense of community that comes from a group of people coming together around a collective purpose, even if just for a couple of days.
I look forward to seeing as many of you at the conference as possible!
Warmly,
Associate Professor Michael Salter
ISSTD President