School Shootings and Therapeutic Interventions for Traumatized Victims

This study attempts an encapsulation of school shooting as a strand of mass violence with the purpose of presenting a perceived effective approach that could be therapeutically adopted for handling traumatized victims of school shooting incidents, particularly traumatized students. School violence involving firearms and high fatalities have been trending in many parts of the world. Pathetically, most of the students who are victims of school shootings receive inadequate or no therapeutic interventions that could help them to recover from the emotional trauma that usually accompany school violence. Students with trauma symptoms experience dysfunctional adaptation, leading to impairment of daily functionality, distortions in peer interactivity, and disruptive self-expressivity. This study leans on family system theory and elucidates how the application of this theory could help the traumatized to regain themselves psychosocially in order to maintain adaptation to function properly in the school or community.

The Significance of Family-of-Origin Dynamics for Adults’ Health and Psychological Wellbeing: The Perspective of Bowen Family System Theory

Bowen family system theory describes family interactional processes that are carried across the generations and determine an individual’s level of autonomy and emotional reactivity as well as the global functioning of the family. According to the theory, any personal, health-related, or relational issues can be explained as a result of diffused anxiety produced by destructive interactional patterns among family members. Although many studies are revealing the relationship between early family life experiences and functioning in adulthood, there is still a lack of studies exploring the complex mediational models based on Bowen theory that would reveal associations between different family-of-origin variables and adults’ health as well as psychological well-being. The chapter defines the main assumptions of Bowen theory as well as summarizes the main results of three studies demonstrating how family and personal factors defined by Bowen theory, such as family emotional system, triangulation, differentiation of self, relate to adults’ health and psychological well-being.