Posttraumatic Flashcards
Diagnoses of these disorders are considered only in the context of serious traumas; the person must have experienced or witnessed an event that involved actual or threatened ____, ____ ____ or ____ ____.
death, serious injury or sexual violation
The symptoms for PTSD are grouped into ____ major categories:
Intrusively the traumatic event.
Avoidance of stimuli associated with the event.
Other signs of mood and cognitive change after the trauma.
Symptoms of increased arousal and reactivity.
four
Once PTSD develops, symptoms are relatively ____. Suicidal thoughts are common among people with PTSD, as are incidents of nonsuicidal self-injury.
chronic
_______ is diagnosed when symptoms occur between 3 days and 1 month after a trauma. The symptoms of ASD are fairly similar to those of PTSD, but the duration is shorter.
Acute stress disorder (ASD)
There are two major concerns about ASD diagnosis. First, some have criticised the ASD diagnosis because it could ____ short-term reactions to serious traumas, even though these are quite common. Second, most people who go on to meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD do not experience ASD in the first month after the trauma.
stigmatise
PTSD tends to be highly ____ with other conditions. The most common disorders are other anxiety disorders, major depression, substance abuse, and conduct disorder
comorbid
Among people exposed to a trauma, ____ are twice as likely to develop PTSD as are men
women
_____ may shape the risk for PTSD in several ways. Some cultural groups may be exposed to higher rates of trauma and, as a consequence, manifest higher rates of PTSD. _____ also may shape the types of symptoms observed in PTSD.
Culture
PTSD appears related to ____ risk for anxiety disorders, high levels of activity in areas of the fear circuit such as the amygdala, childhood exposure to trauma, and tendencies to attend selectively to cues of threat. As with other anxiety disorders, neuroticism and negative affectivity predict the onset of PTSD.
genetic
PTSD has been related to the ____ model of conditioning. In this model, the initial fear in PTSD is assumed to arise from classical conditioning. For example, a woman may come to fear walking in the neighborhood (the conditioned stimulus) where she was raped (the unconditioned stimulus). This classically conditioned fear is so intense that the woman avoids the neighborhood as much as possible.
two-factor
Operant conditioning contributes to the maintenance of this ____ behaviour; the avoidance is reinforced by the reduction of fear that comes from not being in the presence of the conditioned stimulus. This avoidant behaviour interferes with chances for the fear to extinguish.
avoidance
Mowrer’s two-factor model suggests two steps in the development of an anxiety disorder:
- Through ____ conditioning, a person learns to fear a neutral stimulus (the CS) that is paired with an intrinsically aversive stimulus (the UCS)
- Through ____ conditioning, a person gains relief by avoiding the CS. This avoidant response is maintained because it is reinforcing (it reduces fear
classical, operant
The ____ of the trauma influences whether or not the person will develop PTSD.
severity
Beyond severity, the ____ of the trauma matters. Traumas caused by humans are more likely to cause PTSD than are natural disasters.
nature
Neurobiological Factors: Hippocampus and Hormones. As with other anxiety disorders, PTSD appears to be related to greater activation of the ____ and diminished activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, regions that are integrally involved in learning and extinguishing fears.
amygdala
