ADVANCING SYSTEMS BIOLOGY, COMPLEXITY SCIENCE, AND NONLINEAR MODELS OF TRAUMA AND TRANSFORMATION.
Convened by The Trauma Recovery Institute
The International Society for Complex Trauma & Systems Science (ISCTSS) is an emerging interdisciplinary society dedicated to advancing understanding of complex trauma, adaptation, persistence, and mechanisms of change within complex human systems.
The Society was founded in recognition that contemporary discussions surrounding trauma, psychological suffering, physiology, and recovery often remain fragmented across disciplines. Clinical trauma work, systems biology. developmental science, complexity theory, philosophy, physiology, and nonlinear dynamics have frequently evolved in parallel rather than in dialogue. ISCTSS exists to support meaningful exchange between these fields.
This question extends beyond symptom reduction or diagnosis. concerns the mechanisms through which patterns become staba constraints emerge, adaptations endure, and enduring changes becomes possible across biological, psychological, relational, and environmental levels of organisation.
ISCTSS therefore approaches trauma not solely as an event, disorder, or psychological phenomenon, but as one possible expression of adaptive organisation within complex living systems. Equally, recovery and transformation are explored not merely as improvements in state, but as potential processes of reorganisation occurring across interacting systems and scales.
Complex human phenomena rarely conform to the boundaries of individual disciplines. Progress requires dialogue across fields.
All models remain open to revision, refinement, challenge, and further development.
Human suffering, adaptation, resilience, and transformation emerge through interactions across systems and scales.
Understanding how systems persiat may be inseparable from understanding how enduring transformation becomes potaible.
The Society values diverse perspectives and constructive disagreement in pursuit of richer understanding.
Membership is currently open to clinicians, researchers, scientists, educators, philosophers, students, and professionals interested in advancing interdisciplinary understanding of trauma, adaptation, persistence, and mechanisms of change.
The Society seeks to foster a growing international community committed to rigorous inquiry, scientific humility, and meaningful dialogue across disciplines.
To establish an internationally recognised interdisciplinary community contributing to increasingly integrative understandings of complex trauma, adaptive organisation, and mechanisms of change, while supporting collaboration between clinicians, scientists, researchers, and related disciplines seeking to understand how complex systems maintain continuity and reorganise over time.
Founder, The Trauma Recovery Institute
Trauma clinician and educator working at the intersection of complex trauma, systems-informed practice, and interdisciplinary dialogue concerning adaptation, persistence, and mechanisms of change.
Advancing interdisciplinary understanding of trauma, complexity, and mechanisms of change.
