Student Essay Contest

More than 50 original essays have been submitted for a chance to win $1,000 plus free attendance and/or hotel accommodations at the next ISTSS 24th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Nov. 13-15, 2008, with pre-meeting institutes held on Nov. 12. The first place essay will be reprinted in the ISTSS StressPoints.

Essay Contest Winners – Decisions are in!
We would like to thank all students who submitted such high quality essays. The judges were impressed by the submissions and thought they were outstanding examples of critical thinking that could help move the field forward.

It is our pleasure to announce that the DSM-V essay contest winners are:

1st place: Erika Wolf
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

2nd place: Paul Frewen
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

3rd place: Laurie Burke
University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

All three winners have already been notified. We hope the students enjoyed and learned from writing the essay as much as the judges enjoyed and learned from reading them. Once again, thank you to the students for their participation. We hope everyone will join us at the ISTSS annual meeting in Chicago in November where there will be several sessions discussing the DSM-V and the three essay contest winners will be formally acknowledged for their accomplishment.

ESSAY TOPIC
The American Psychiatric Association is moving toward issuing an updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM-V in 2011. There are several key issues in the field that the new DSM-V will attempt to grapple with, particularly as relevant to the field of traumatic stress.

Key issues include a variety of basic nomenclature issues, integrating new and emerging information from neuroscience research in the DSM-V classification system, reevaluating the relationship between mental disorder and disability, considering a dimensional approach to the classification of some disorders, and examining the importance of culture in psychopathology. Many of these issues are discussed in pre-planning DSM-V documents widely available through the web.

CONTEST DETAILS

Prizes:

*Your combined registration, travel and/or accommodation expenses not to exceed $800.

Last Updated: August 28, 2008