Question

Trauma & Stress-Related Disorders

Answer 1

Note: This is a reference for educational/studying purposes, not a question, please save all comments or questions for the end.

Answer 2

\({\bf{Stress}}\) consists of the stressor (event that taxes us physically/mentally) and stress response (the reaction to the demand)

\({\bf{Stress~Response~by~the~Body}}\)

- autonomic nervous system (ANS): nerve fibers that connect CNS to other organs, controls involuntary actions
- endocrine system: glands that release ehormones into bloodstream which act on other orgrans
- sympathetic nervous system: increases heartbeat + other physical changes in response to stressor
- parasympathetic nervous system: returns body processes to normal
- HPA pathway: hypothalamus --> pituitary gland --> ACTH (stress hormone) --> adrenal cortex --> corticosteroids
- trait anxiety: general level of anxiety, differs from people
- state anxiety: differences between people about what situations are threatening

Answer 3

\({\bf{Acute~and~Posttraumatic~Stress~Disorders}}\)

acute stress disorder: symptoms begin w/in four weeks of trauma and last < month
post-traumatic: symptoms continue longer than a month

main symptoms:
- re-experiencing trauma through thoughts/dreams/memories
- avoiding activities that remind them of event
- reduced responsiveness: detachment from others or loss of interest in activities that bring enjoyment
- increased arousal, negative emotions, guilt

- stats: 3.5% per given year; 7-9% during lifetime, 2/3 seek treatment, women are twice as likely as men to develop the disorder

causes:
- combat
- disasters
- victimization of abuse/assault
- experiences with terrorism/torture

Answer 4

factors:

- hippocampus (plays role in memory and stress hormones)
- amygdala (anxiety/emotional responses)
- certain personalities (how generally anxious someone is)
- childhood traumas
- lack of social support networks
- certain minorities (ex. Hispanic Americans) hold cultural beliefs about traumas that increase risk of developing PTSD

treatments:

- antianxiety drugs
-exposure treatment
- eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): clients move their eyes rhythmically while being flooded with troubling situations/images
- rap groups (veterans meet together to share thoughts, give mutual support)

psychological debriefing: intervention in which victims talk about their feelings soon after the incident, gain stress management tips, referral to long-term counseling

- positives: offering free/low cost mental health services at disaster sites, good for low income communities, some benefit for high risk individuals
- negatives: may not be more effective than the control, may even lead to higher rates
of PTSD b/c it may lead people to focus too much about traumatic events, may unintentionally suggest problems

Answer 5

\({\bf{Dissociative~Disorders}}\)

dissociative amnesia:
- localized: most common, loss of memory of events within limited time, usually begins with trauma
- selective amnesia: remember only some events that took place w/in a limited time frame
- generalized amnesia: loss of memory that extends before the traumatic event
- continuous amnesia: loss of memory continues into present

dissociative fugue: loss of memory + fleeing to another location, can last a few hours or many years, establishing a new name/ new relationships, etc. tends to end abruptly, people sometimes forget memories of fugue period, usually does not recurr

Answer 6

\({\bf{Dissociative~Identity~Disorder}}\)

- developing two + distinct personalities (sub-personalities, alternate personalities, "alters") with unique memories/behaviors/cognitions
- 15 avg for women, 8 for men
-primary host appears most often and dominates the individual's life
- mutually amnestic: subpersonalities are not aware of each other
- mutually cognizant: subpersonalities are aware of the others
- coconscious subpersonalities: subpersonalities that cannot directly interact with the others, but can show themselves indirectly through hallucinations/writing/voice
- one way amnesic: most common, some are aware of others but awareness is not two-way
- may be iatrogenic, often appears when individuals are already in treatment for a different condition

subpersonalities can differ in:
- identifying features: age, gender, race, history
- abilities/preferences
- physical responses to the same stimuli

Answer 7

factors of dissociation:

- operant conditioning (dissociation can temporarily relieve anxiety/stressors)
- repression of painful memories. dissociative amnesia = single episode of repression, dissociative identity disorder is result of lifetime of repression
- self-hypnosis to forget unpleasant events
- high dependence on state-dependent learning/memory retrieval

treatment for dissociative amnesia:
- hypnotic therapy: hypnosis of patience and recall of forgotten events
- barbiturates
- psychodynamic therapy: recollection of repressed memories

treatment for dissociative identity disorder:
- usually required for recovery
- similar to the ones for dissociative amnesia
- goal is to integrate the subpersonalities (fusion)
- fusionisjustatactictomakeweaksubpersonalitiesstronger

Answer 8

\({\bf{De-personalization-Derealization~Disorder}}\)

sense of detachment from one's bodily sensation/mind
- doubling: mind is "floating" above them
- most people have experienced these sensations at some point, need to have other symptoms/high severity to constitute a disorder
- most frequent in young adults, can be caused by fatigue/pain/substance abuse

Answer 9

Anyway, that's all for this topic, I hope it was of use to you! If you have any questions I will address them to the best of my ability (you may have better luck contacting me on my main account, Vocaloid)

Source: Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Eighth Edition, Ronald J. Comer