chapter 5: disorders of trauma

Sympathetic Nervous System

Activates the fight-or-flight response, increasing heart rate and physical arousal.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Calms the body after danger passes and restores normal resting functions.

Fight-or-Flight Response

The body's physical arousal response to a perceived threat.

HPA Axis

The hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to release ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol.

ACTH (Adrenocorticotropic Hormone)

Hormone released by the pituitary gland that stimulates the adrenal cortex.

Cortisol

A corticosteroid released through the HPA axis during stress.

Epinephrine and Norepinephrine

Chemicals released during the sympathetic stress response that increase physical arousal.

Reduced Responsiveness

Emotional numbing, detachment, reduced interest, or decreased response to surroundings.

Dissociation

Psychological separation from one's identity, memories, or sense of reality.

Derealization

Feeling that the surrounding world is unreal, strange, or dreamlike.

Acute Stress Disorder (ASD)

Trauma-related symptoms lasting from 3 days to 1 month after trauma.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Trauma-related symptoms lasting longer than 1 month or beginning much later.

Intrusive Symptoms

Unwanted trauma memories, nightmares, flashbacks, or distress triggered by reminders.

Avoidance

Avoiding trauma-related thoughts, feelings, memories, or external reminders.

Negative Cognitions and Mood

Negative beliefs, guilt, shame, detachment, memory gaps, or difficulty experiencing positive emotions.

Arousal and Reactivity Symptoms

Hypervigilance, exaggerated startle responses, sleep problems, irritability, and concentration difficulties.

Risk Factors for PTSD

Genetics, childhood adversity, personality, weak social support, discrimination, and severe trauma.

Historical Trauma

Psychological wounds passed across generations because of oppression or collective trauma.

Intentionally Inflicted Trauma

Trauma deliberately caused by another person, such as rape or torture.

Social Support

Help and support from other people that can reduce the risk of developing PTSD and aid recovery.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Therapy that addresses unhelpful thoughts and behaviors associated with trauma.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)

A treatment that involves gradually confronting trauma-related memories and reminders.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

A therapy that helps people examine and change unhelpful beliefs related to trauma.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Treatment involving rhythmic eye movements while recalling traumatic memories.

Psychological Debriefing

An early intervention involving detailed discussion of feelings after a critical incident; it is not recommended for most people.

Psychological First Aid (PFA)

A supportive, non-intrusive early intervention for people affected by traumatic events.

Antidepressant Medications

Medications that may help treat symptoms of trauma-related disorders.

Prolonged Grief Disorder

Persistent, intense grief that continues for at least one year after an adult loses a loved one.

Yearning

An intense longing for a deceased loved one.

Dissociative Amnesia

Inability to recall important personal information, usually related to trauma, beyond normal forgetting and without a physical or medical cause.

Localized Amnesia

Inability to remember any events during a specific period.

Selective Amnesia

Remembering some, but not all, events during a specific period.

Generalized Amnesia

Memory loss extending across one's entire life history or personal identity.

Continuous Amnesia

Inability to remember events beginning at a particular time and continuing into the present.

Systematized Amnesia

Memory loss involving a specific category of information, such as memories of a particular person.

Dissociative Fugue

A form of dissociative amnesia involving unexpected travel away from one's usual surroundings and loss of personal identity or past memories.

Spontaneous Recovery

Recovery of memories without treatment.

Encyclopedic Memory

Memory for general knowledge and facts, which is typically retained in dissociative amnesia.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A disorder involving two or more distinct identity states and recurrent memory gaps.

Subpersonalities (Alter Personalities)

Distinct identity states that may have different memories, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Iatrogenic

Unintentionally caused or produced by a clinician or treatment.

Mutual Amnesia

Subpersonalities are unaware of one another.

Mutual Cognizance

Subpersonalities are aware of one another.

Coconsciousness

One identity state is aware of another identity state's experiences without fully controlling behavior.

Integration (Fusion)

The therapeutic goal of combining separate identity states into one functional identity.

Psychodynamic View

Explains dissociative disorders through repression of painful memories, thoughts, or impulses.

Repression

Unconsciously blocking distressing thoughts, memories, or impulses from awareness.

Behavioral/Cognitive-Behavioral View

Explains dissociation through learned connections between mental states and memory.

State-Dependent Learning

Information learned in one physical or emotional state is more easily recalled when in that same state.

Self-Hypnosis

A process of inducing a hypnotic state; some theories propose it may contribute to dissociative memory loss.

Hypnotic Amnesia

Inability to recall information associated with a hypnotic state.

Hypnotherapy

The use of hypnosis in treatment.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Therapy that explores unconscious conflicts and distressing experiences.

Depersonalization

Feeling detached from one's own body, thoughts, feelings, or sense of self.

Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Persistent or recurrent depersonalization and/or derealization while reality testing remains intact.

Doubling

The sensation of observing oneself from outside or above one's body.

Reality Testing

The ability to recognize that one's experiences and perceptions may feel unreal even though reality itself has not changed.

Transient Depersonalization/Derealization

Temporary feelings of detachment from oneself or one's surroundings that can occur during stress or fatigue.