Definition
There is a spectrum of traumatic disorders, ranging from the effects of a single overwhelming event (such as a violent personal assault – including sexual assault, physical assault, robbery, or mugging; a natural or manmade disaster; or a serious car or other vehicle accident), to the more complicated effects of prolonged and repeated abuse (as in the case of hostages, prisoners of war, religious cults, domestic physical/sexual/emotional abuse, and childhood physical/sexual/emotional abuse.
Trauma and PTSD
Trauma is a type of damage to the mind that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event. Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope, or integrate the emotions involved with that experience. A traumatic event involves one’s experience, or repeating events of being overwhelmed that can be precipitated in weeks, years, or even decades as the person struggles to cope with the immediate circumstances, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences.
PTSD refers to a set of symptoms that can occur after exposure to a frightening and traumatic event. Symptoms include a sense of reliving the traumatic event (through ‘flashbacks’ or nightmares), avoidance of places, people, or activities which remind the person of the event, feeling numb or detached from others, having negative thoughts about oneself and the world, feeling irritable, angry, or wound up, and having trouble sleeping.
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Symptoms of Trauma and PTSD
Treatment
Treatment allows processing trauma-related memories and allows growth towards more adaptive psychological functioning. It helps to develop positive coping instead of negative coping and allows the individual to integrate upsetting-distressing material (thoughts, feelings and memories) resolve internally.
Psychodynamic Therapy encourages clients to speak freely about their emotions, desires, and fears in order to reveal vulnerable feelings that have been pushed out of conscious awareness.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) can be effective in treating trauma, by:
- providing information and an explanation about the trauma reaction (a ‘normal reaction to an abnormal event’);
- providing a range of strategies for managing distressing symptoms;
- assisting with graded exposure to trauma-related stimuli; and
- the use of cognitive-restructuring to modify distorted thinking and beliefs around the trauma.
The Narrative Therapy helps people to see what is “absent but implicit” in the presentation of a problem. By exploring the impact of the problem, it is possible to identify what is truly important and valuable to a person in a broader context, beyond the problem.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) focuses on people who have experienced sexual abuse, violence, natural disaster and other kinds of trauma and who present with difficulties of guilt, depression, poor self-esteem, relationship problems, etc. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy offers a practical framework for therapy derived from, the strengths perspective, positive psychology can be used with individuals or groups that assist in identifying, strengthening and harnessing personal strengths and resources in the wake of traumatic events.
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