PESHAWAR: A competence and trauma centre for journalists would be established at the University of Peshawar to identify and address the psychological problems facing the mediapersons reporting in war zones.

The University of Peshawar and the Deutsche Well (DW) Academy, Germany had recently signed a memorandum of understanding to set up the Competence and Trauma Center for Journalists (CTCJ). The centre is being set up at the department of psychology of the University of Peshawar, which will be opened shortly.

The Peshawar Press Club (PPC) and Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ) would assist the University of Peshawar in formation of a core group of volunteer journalists, who would work in collaboration with the faculty for psychotherapy of reporters, according to a press release issued by the journalism and mass communication department of UoP on Friday.

In this connection, the press release said, a focused group discussion was held at the department of journalism & mass communication jointly chaired by the department’s chairman Professor Altaf Ullah Khan, and Dr Erum Irshad, chairperson of the department of psychology.

Working journalists, including KhUJ president Nisar Mehmood, PPC president Nasir Hussain and faculty of both the departments, attended the discussion.

Dr Altaf Khan while elaborating on the aims and objectives of CTCJ said that it was need of the hour to work for the psychotherapy of the journalists suffering from the psychological trauma while covering incidents like drone attacks, bomb blasts and other catastrophes in the region. Reporting from the war zones had affected their lives both bodily and psychologically, but unfortunately no attention has been given to this problem in the past, he added.

Published in Dawn, November 15th , 2014