Victims of Crime Flashcards
What are the elements that encompass a crisis reaction?
- Trauma
- The Crisis Reaction
- Physical Response
- “Fight or Flight” reaction
- Exhaustion
- The Psychological Response
What is Trauma?
Merriam-Webster defines trauma as a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.
The normal human response to trauma follows a similar pattern called
Crisis Reaction
What is the trauma response based on our animal instincts?
Physical Response
What are the elements of the “frozen fright” reaction?
- physical shock,
- disorientation,
- and numbness
What are the elements of the “Fight-or-flight” reaction?
- Adrenaline begins to pump through body.
- Body may relieve itself of excess materials, like ingested food.
- Physical senses, one or more, may become very acute while others “shut down.”
- Heart rate increases.
- Hyperventilation, sweating, etc.
Physical arousal associated with fight or flight cannot be prolonged indefinitely which eventually will result in
Exhaustion
What are the Mental Psychological Response Stages?
- Stage one: Shock, Disbelief, and Denial
- Stage two: Cataclysm of emotions
- Stage three: Reconstruction of equilibrium
- Stage one: Shock, Disbelief, and Denial
Denial in this sense means truly believing something did not happen, or that it was not as bad as it actually was. This is a psychological defense mechanism that kicks in to protect a person from the full impact of what has happened.
- Stage two: Cataclysm of emotions
Anger/rage, fear/terror, grief/sorrow, confusion/ frustration, guilt/self-blame, violation/vulnerability, and shame/humiliation.
- Stage three: Reconstruction of equilibrium
Emotional roller coaster that eventually becomes balanced.
What are other potential psychological responses the victim may experience?
- Slowed thinking
- Fearful thoughts
- Memory problems
- Distressing dreams
- Blaming
- Illogical thinking
- Flashbacks of a previous trauma
- Intrusive thoughts
- Poor judgment
- Difficulty making decisions
What are other potential behavioral responses the victim may experience?
- Crying spells
- Extreme hyperactivity
- Change in activity level
- Withdrawal
- Increase/decrease in appetite, sleep, or sex drive
- Increased smoking, drug, and/or alcohol use
- Startle easily
- Conflicts with others
- Change in hygiene and/or self-care
- Change in social patterns and/or communication
- Significant increase or decrease in productivity
- Avoiding reminders of event
- Inability to stop focusing on what occurred
- Getting immersed in recovery-related tasks
What does the Range of the Crisis Reaction includes?
- Shock
- Depression and loneliness
- Panic
- Hostility and resentment
- Hope
- Emotion
- Physical symptoms of distress
- Guilt
- Inability to resume normal activities
- Affirming reality
What is Trauma accompanied by?
A multitude of losses:
* Control over one’s life
* Sense of fairness or justice
* A sense of immortality and invulnerability
* Trust in God or in other people
* Personally significant property, self, or loved ones
* Future
Because trauma can be so overwhelming that it causes a person to revert or regress to
Childhood, mentally and physically.
Recovery from immediate trauma is often affected by
- Severity of crisis reaction
- Ability to understand in retrospect what happened.
- Stability of victim/survivor equilibrium after event
- Supportive environment
- Validation of experience (e.g., it was terrible; the feelings/thoughts someone is having are natural and understandable given what they have been through, etc.)
Intensity continuum - Crime-specific
- Victim-specific
- Cultural differences
What does recovery issues for survivors include?
- Getting control of event in victim/survivor’s mind.
- Working out an understanding of event and, as needed, a redefinition of values.
- Re-establishing a new equilibrium/life.
- Re-establishing trust.
- Re-establishing a future.
- Re-establishing meaning.
What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
People who survive severely traumatic events often have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Survivors of combat are the most frequent victims, but it is also encountered in people who have survived other disasters, both natural and man-made.
