The T's

Question 1

Who came up with the term traumatic neurosis?

Answer 1

Freud

Question 2

What did the term traumatic neurosis describe?

Answer 2

to describe the symptoms that develop following a frightening experience. They include stereotyped actions or episodes, including dreams, in which parts of the traumatic experience are repeated.

Question 3

How did traumatic neurosis differ from all other neuroses?

Answer 3

Freud believed that the traumatic neurosis differed from all other neuroses insofar as its symptoms do not contain an unconscious meaning and hence are not amenable to interpretation. It was assumed that their function was to provide the patient with an opportunity to reexperience the event in order to assimilate it retrospectively.

Question 4

When did Abram Kardiner research traumatic neuroses?

Answer 4

The traumatic neuroses were the subject of an important study by Abram Kardiner, who had treated US veterans of World War One during the mid-1920s at No. 81 Veterans’ Bureau Hospital in New York (Kardiner, 1941b).

Question 5

When did Abram Kardiner produce findings on traumatic neuroses?

Answer 5

In 1959 he summarised in his clinical findings and provided a clear psychoanalytical explanation for the disorder.

Question 6

What were Abram Kardiner findings on traumatic neuroses that were reproduced in the DSM-III (1980) criteria for PTSD?

Answer 6

Although this definition does not match the DSM-III (1980) criteria for PTSD, there are several elements in common. An important missing component is the central role given to memory and the flashback phenomenon.

Question 7

What were Abram Kardiner findings on traumatic neuroses?

Answer 7

Kardiner subdivided traumatic neuroses into acute and chronic. He identified five characteristics for the chronic variety:

1 an altered perception of the self in relation to the outside world
2 repeated catastrophic dreams
3 increased irritability and startle reaction
4 a proclivity to aggression
5 reduced levels of functioning and loss of interest in the outside world.

As regards onset, Kardiner hypothesised that some men had experienced a delayed breakdown, this occurring after the soldier had returned from France to the United States (Kardiner, 1959, pp. 245–257).