Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Clin. Psychol. Psychother. 5, 56 (1998)
Book Review
J. P. Wilson and T. M. Keane (1997).
Assessing Psychological Trauma and PTSD. New York: The Guilford Press
(578 pp).
This book offers a comprehensive review of the extensive
field of assessment in PTSD. The volume is divided into
three sections. The first starts with an overview of 20 self-
report measures of traumatic events, trauma reactions
and PTSD symptoms. The measures are not only
presented, they are also discussed with regard to practical
usefulness, research findings, and suitability for use with
distinct populations. The remaining three chapters in this
section, review theoretical issues such as psychometric
theory, and physiological factors of assessment. Specific
attention is paid to features of assessment in adults who
have been abused as children.
In Part II, the focus is on context-specific traumatic
experiences and reactions. This part of the volume opens
with considerations of epidemiological methods for
assessing trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder. The
next seven chapters deal with specific issues that may be
important in trauma assessment procedures: the assess-
ment of traumatic reactions in children, in couples and in
families, the connection between trauma and medical
illness, gender issues, cross-cultural and multiethnic
aspects in assessment of trauma, military-related PTSD,
and traumatic bereavement. Each chapter gives an over-
view of considerations in assessment of the population
concerned, available measures, and practical guidelines
for judgment of the results of the assessment procedures.
Each of the seven chapters in the final section of the
book is given over to a specific technique for the
assessment of traumatic reactions, dissociative tendencies
and posttraumatic stress disorder. A revised version of
the Impact of Event Scale is presented, in which items of
hyperarousal were added to the intrusion and avoidance
items of the original version developed by Horowitz and
colleagues. The second chapter in Part III focuses on the
peritraumatic dissociative experiences questionnaire,
based on findings that dissociation during a traumatic
CCC 1063±3995/98/010056±01$17.50
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
event may predict the development of a PTSD. Further-
more, an overview is given of structured clinical inter-
view techniques regarding PTSD, such as the Structured
Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and the Clinician-
Administered PTSD-Scale (CAPS). Posttraumatic dis-
sociation is dealt with in another chapter, employing
the Dissociative Disorders Scale of the SCID. The book
also provides an overview of neuropsychological assess-
ment and interpretation of test results, along with classic
procedures such as the Rorschach Ink Blot.
Despite the recent emphasis on cognitive aspects in the
development and maintenance of PTSD, relatively little
attention is paid in this book to the assessment of
cognition. It is given only cursory consideration in a
chapter on the thematic assessment of posttraumatic
reactions. This last point apart, the book can be said to be
a comprehensive handbook of assessment in trauma and
PTSD. It provides an up-to-date evaluation and overview
of assessment approaches, which will enable both
researchers and practitioners alike to select measures
that are best suited to a particular situation. What makes
this book even more practical is the fact that the measures
themselves are included in most chapters as appendices.
Where this is not the case, information is given on how
the instruments may be obtained. This book is a must for
anyone working in the field of trauma.
Agnes van Minnen*
University of Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
* Correspondence to: Dr A van Minnen, Department of
Clinical Psychology, Catholic University Nijmegen, PO Box
9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.