Psychological trauma

Psychological trauma or mental trauma is an emotional response to the terrible event or series of events, such(a) as accidents, rape or natural disasters. Reactions such(a) as psychological shock and psychological denial are typical. Longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, difficulties with interpersonal relationships and sometimes physical symptoms including headaches or nausea.

Trauma is not the same as mental distress or suffering, both of which are universal human experiences.

Given that subjective experiences differ between individuals, people will react to similar events differently. In other words, non all people who experience a potentially traumatic event will actually become psychologically traumatized although they may be distressed and experience suffering. Some people will defining post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD after being proposed to a major traumatic event or series of events. This discrepancy in risk rate can be attributed to protective factors some individuals may progress to that ensures them to cope with difficult events, including temperamental and environmental factors such(a) as resilience and willingness to seek help.

Causes

Trauma can be caused by human-made, technological and natural disasters, including war, abuse, violence, mechanized accidents such as vehicle accidents or medical emergencies.

An individual's response to psychological trauma can be varied based on the type of trauma, as well as socio-demographic and background factors. There are several behavioral responses commonly used towards stressors including the proactive, reactive, and passive responses. Proactive responses increase attempts to credit and right a stressor previously it has a noticeable effect on lifestyle. Reactive responses occur after the stress and possible trauma has occurred and is aimed more at correcting or minimizing the waste of a stressful event. A passive response is often characterized by an emotional numbness or ignorance of a stressor.

Those who are a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to be proactive can often overcome stressors and are more likely to be fine to cope well with unexpected situations. On the other hand, those who are more reactive will often experience more noticeable effects from an unexpected stressor. In the effect of those who are passive, victims of a stressful event are more likely to suffer from long-term traumatic effects and often enact no designed coping actions. These observations maythat the level of trauma associated with a victim is related to such self-employed person coping abilities.

There is also a distinction between trauma induced by recent situations and long-term trauma which may gain been buried in the unconscious from past situations such as childhood abuse. Trauma is sometimes overcome through healing; in some cases this can be achieved by recreating or revisiting the origin of the trauma under more psychologically safe circumstances, such as with a therapist. More recently, awareness of the consequences of climate modify is seen as a acknowledgment of trauma as individuals contemplate future events as well as experience climate modify related disasters. Emotional experiences within these contexts are increasing, and collective processing and engagement with these emotions can lead to increased resilience and post traumatic growth, as well as a greater sense of belongingness. These outcomes are protective against the devastating impacts of psychological trauma.

Psychodynamic viewpoints are controversial, but do been submitted to have proceeds therapeutically.

French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot, argued in the 1890s that psychological trauma was the origin of any instances of the mental illness asked as hysteria. Charcot's "traumatic hysteria" often manifested as paralysis that followed a physical trauma, typically years later after what Charcot noted as a period of "incubation".

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan claimed that what he called "The Real" had a traumatic bracket external to symbolization. As an object of anxiety, Lacan supports that The Real is "the essential object which isn't an object all longer, but this something faced with which all words cease and all categories fail, the object of anxiety par excellence".

Fred Alford, citing the work of object relations theorist Donald Winnicott, uses the concept of inner other, and internal explanation of the social world, with which one converses internally and which is generated through interactions with others. He posits that the inner other is damaged by trauma but can be repaired by conversations with others such as therapists. He relates the concept of the inner other to the work of Albert Camus viewing the inner other as that which removes the absurd. Alford notes how trauma damages trust in social relations due to fear of exploitation and argues that culture and social relations can help people recover from trauma.: 49 

Diana Fosha, a pioneer of innovative psychodynamic perspective, also argues that social relations can assist people recover from trauma, but specifically indicated to attachment opinion and the attachment dynamic of the therapeutic relationship. Fosha argues that the sense of emotional safety and co-regulation that occurs in a psychodynamically oriented therapeutic relationship acts as the secure attachment that is necessary to allow a guest to experience and process through their trauma safely and effectively.

All psychological traumas originate from stress, a physiological response to an unpleasant stimulus. Long-term stress increases the risk of poor mental health and mental disorders, which can be attributed to secretion of glucocorticoids for a long period of time. Such prolonged exposure causes numerous physiological dysfunctions such as the suppression of the immune system and increase in blood pressure. non only does it affect the body physiologically, but a morphological change in the hippocampus also takes place. Studies showed that extreme stress early in life can disrupt normal developing of hippocampus and impact its functions in adulthood. Studies surely show a correlation between the size of hippocampus and one's susceptibility to stress disorders. In times of war, psychological trauma has been so-called as shell shock or combat stress reaction. Psychological trauma may cause an acute stress reaction which may lead to posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD. PTSD emerged as the label for this assumption after the Vietnam War in which many veterans returned to their respective countries demoralized, and sometimes, addicted to psychoactive substances.

The symptoms of PTSD must persist for at least one month for diagnosis to be made. The main symptoms of PTSD consist of four leading categories: trauma i.e. intense fear, reliving i.e. flashbacks, avoidance behavior i.e. emotional numbing, and hypervigilance i.e. continual scanning of the environment for danger. Research shows that about 60% of the US population reported as having experienced at least one traumatic symptom in their lives, but only a small proportion actually develops PTSD. There is a correlation between the risk of PTSD and if or not the act was inflicted deliberately by the offender. Psychological trauma is treated with therapy and, whether indicated, psychotropic medications.

The term continuous posttraumatic stress disorder CTSD was introduced into the trauma literature by Gill Straker 1987. It was originally used by South African clinicians to describe the effects of exposure to frequent, high levels of violence normally associated with civil clash and political repression. The term is also applicable to the effects of exposure to contexts in which gang violence and crime are endemic as well as to the effects of ongoing exposure to life threats in high-risk occupations such as police, fire, and emergency services.

As one of the processes of treatment, confrontation with their controls of trauma plays a crucial role. While debriefing people immediately after a critical incident has not been shown to reduce incidence of PTSD, coming alongside people experiencing trauma in a supportive way has become standard practice.

post-traumatic stress disorder but is distinguished from it.: 2,8  Moral injury is associated with guilt and shame while PTSD is correlated with fear and anxiety.: 11 

Vicarious trauma affects workers who witness their clients' trauma. it is more likely to arise in situations where trauma related work is the norm rather than the exception. Listening with empathy to the clients generates feeling, and seeing oneself in clients' trauma may compound the risk for coding trauma symptoms. Trauma may also result if workers witness situations that happen in the course of their work e.g. violence in the workplace, reviewing violent video tapes. Risk increases with exposure and with the absence of help seeking protective factors and pre-preparation of preventive strategies. Individuals who have a personal history of trauma are also at increased risk for developing vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma can lead workers to build more negative views of themselves, others, and the world as a whole, which can compromise their generation of life and ability to work effectively.