Current Research Projects
Update and digitisation of indicative trauma impact manual
The Indicative Trauma Impact Manual (ITIM) is being upgraded and digitised by the International Institute for Trauma & Abuse Studies (IITAS) into a fully accessible, interactive app and online platform.
This project transforms a widely used trauma-informed reference tool into a dynamic digital resource designed for real-time use across policing, health, legal, social care and safeguarding settings.
The new digitised ITIM will allow practitioners to quickly navigate trauma impact indicators, patterns of abuse, and contextual risk factors without relying on diagnostic or pathologising frameworks.
The platform is being designed with accessibility, usability and ethical practice at its core, including searchable content, modular learning, decision-support tools, language tools, report-writing aids, and regular evidence updates. By digitising ITIM, IITAS aims to support faster, more accurate and more humane professional responses to trauma and abuse - reducing re-traumatisation of victims and survivors, misinterpretation of their presentations, improving protection outcomes, and embedding anti-pathologising, trauma-informed practice into everyday systems.
For details, please contact us.
Call for Evidence: Pathologisation of victims of domestic and sexual abuse
The International Institute for Trauma & Abuse Studies (IITAS) is undertaking a national call for evidence and participants to examine the experiences of people who disclosed or reported sexual abuse or domestic abuse and were subsequently pathologised within health or mental health systems. This study focuses on cases where individuals were diagnosed with mental disorders, prescribed psychiatric medication, detained under mental health legislation, or subjected to interventions such as forced chemical or physical restraint or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) following disclosures of abuse.
The research aims to document patterns of institutional response, explore how trauma disclosures are reframed as individual pathology, and analyse the social, professional and systemic factors that contribute to these outcomes. Using qualitative testimony and survivor-led evidence, the study will examine the consequences of psychiatric intervention on credibility, protection, recovery and access to justice.
Findings will be used to inform upcoming government policy, trauma-informed systems development, professional training, and national guidance, with the aim of challenging harmful diagnostic practices and advancing non-pathologising, trauma-informed responses to abuse across health, legal, and safeguarding systems.
An official call for participants and full details of the study will be released shortly. For details, please contact us.
Call for Evidence: Pathologisation of Women and Children in The Courtroom
The International Institute for Trauma & Abuse Studies (IITAS) is undertaking a national call for evidence and participants to examine how women and girls are pathologised within family and criminal court proceedings, and how psychiatric language and mental health histories are used to undermine their credibility. This study will focus on cases where diagnoses, psychological assessments, allegations of mental instability, or historic mental health records were introduced following disclosures of abuse, violence, stalking, or harm.
The research aims to document the routine use of psychiatric framing to portray women and children as unreliable, dishonest, delusional or psychologically unfit, particularly in cases involving domestic abuse, sexual violence, child protection or contested family proceedings. Using survivor testimony and case-based evidence, the study will analyse how diagnostic labels, expert reports, and institutional narratives are deployed to shift focus away from alleged perpetrators and onto the perceived pathology of victims.
Findings will be used to inform legal reform, government legislation, trauma-informed legal practice, professional guidance and training, with the aim of challenging misogynistic, pathologising practices and strengthening trauma-informed, evidence-based approaches to credibility and safeguarding in the courts.
An official call for evidence and participants will follow shortly. For details, please contact us.