Learning from disasters: The psychological impacts of trauma.
Caroline is a psychiatrist whose research has focussed on anxiety and understanding how people respond after traumatic events. She led the planning and implementation of the clinical and psychosocial responses to both the earthquakes and the mosque attacks. She has shared findings from her work widely with communities and agencies across New Zealand and internationally.
Based at the Department of Psychological Medicine, Christchurch, her research has examined the spectrum of outcomes after exposure to the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010/2011 and the mosque attacks in 2019. This has included those with significant distress and those identifying as resilient. She has investigated how trauma effects that brain, factors associated with both adverse and positive outcomes such as resilience and post-traumatic growth, and the role culture, spirituality and religion may play.
