Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Affective Anhedonia
: emotional numbing CognitiveSomaticBehavioral passivity;
nightmares; flashbacks; exaggerated startle response lower back
pain; headaches; stomach ache and digestion problems; insomnia;
intrusive memories, inability to concentrate, hyperarousal
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Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Biological Level of
Anlysis Increase level of noradrenaline Geracioti (2001) tested
participants by stimulating their adrenaline system. The stimulated
patients induced a panic attack in 70 per cent of patients and
flashbacks in 50 per cent of patients Result showed that increase
sensitivity of noradrenaline receptors in patients with PTSD
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Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Cognitive Level of
Anlysis Development of PTSD is associated with a tendency to take
personal responsibility for failures and to cope with stress by
focusing on the emotion, rather than the problem Brewin et al 1996
argue that these flashbacks stimulate sensory and emotional aspects
of the memory, and subsequently causing pain Sutker et al 1995
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Sociocultural level of Analysis Racisms, and Oppression
contributes in developing PTSD Roysircar (2000) Vietnam veterans
20.6 per cent of black and 27.6 per cent of Hispanic veterans met
more criteria for PTSD than 13 per cent of white veterans common
cause of PTSD for girls - fear of rape common cause of PTSD for
children - domestic violence Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder
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Biomedical Treatment for PTSD Antidepressants and Tranquilizers
treat people suffering from PTSD Common prescribed tranquilizers:
Valium and Xanax Modulate neurotransmitter that regulates anxiety
levels Antidepressants are commonly used because improvement in
depression will lead to improvement in PTSD since most of PTSD
patients suffer from depression
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Treatment for PTSD Foa
(1986) the expert of PTSD works as the basis of CBT CBT includes
exposure therapy and psycho-education Expose PTSD sufferers to the
traumatic events by asking them to search their memory and describe
the event over and over again Four goals for CBT: 1. Create a safe
environment that shows that the trauma cannot hurt them 2. Show
that remembering the trauma is not equivalent to experiencing it
again 3. Show that anxiety is alleviated over time 4. Acknowledge
that experiencing PTSD symptoms does not lead to a loss of
control
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Group Therapy for PTSD Friedman and Schnurr (1966) looked at
the role of group therapy on Vietnam War They looked at 325
veterans as a group who had psychosocial deficits (anger
management, social anxiety and conflict resolution) They did
trauma-focused therapy: exposure to the traumatic memories,
cognitive restructuring, and coping skills development Result: 27
percent compared to 17 percent = patients who worked through the
trauma focused therapy had a higher rate of improvement
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Pros and Cons of Treatments ProsCons BiomedicalMost effective
for short term treatment Not effective for long term treatment CBT
TherapyCBT allows PTSD patients to reduce anxiety and stress
through talking about their trauma Patients may become initially
worse and therapists may become upset when they hear about the
patients stories Group TherapyMost effective for long term
treatment and for patients social lives Takes time to adapt to the
treatment since people have to reveal their trauma
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Most Efficient Treatment Behavioral symptoms: flashbacks,
nightmares CBT will be most efficient for these symptoms because
CBT allows patients to describe about their trauma event over and
over This makes them realize that talking about the trauma is not
the same as experiencing the trauma Allows the anxiety to alleviate
over time Allows them to acknowledge that experiencing PTSD
symptoms does not lead to a loss of control
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Etiology Treatment
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EtiologyTreatmentRelationship BiologicalIncrease level of
noradrenalineAntidepressants and Tranquilizers Antidepressants
modulate nerotransmitter and hormones that regulate anxiety level
Cognitivetake personal responsibility for failures and cope with
stress by focusing on the emotion, rather than the problem
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Make patients feel comfortable through
psycho-education Foa (1986) SocialRacisms, and Oppression in social
groups contribute in developing PTSD Trauma-focused therapy combine
patients who have psychosocial deficits into psychoeducational
groups and process intensive group therapy Friedmann and Schnurr
(1966)
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Symptoms of Bulimia AffectiveCognitiveSomaticBehavioral
feelings of inadequacy and guilt recurrent episodes of binge
eating; use of vomiting; laxatives, exercise or dieting to control
weight negative self-image; poor body image; tendency to perceive
events as more stressful than most people would; perfectionism
-swollen salivary glands, erosion of tooth enamel; stomach or
intestinal problems -Extreme cases: heart problems
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Etiology of Bulimia
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Cognitive explanations Body image distortion hypothesis (Bruch
1962) showed that bulimia people overestimate their own body size
Polivy and Herman - cognitive dis inhibition Milkshake experiment:
non dieters and dieters given a chocolate milkshake and later they
were asked to have ice creams as much as they'd like and in result
dieters ate more than non dieters. Because dieting causes cognitive
control of eating to override physiological control of eating,
making the dieter more vulnerable to disinhibition and subsequent
binge eating
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Etiology of Bulimia Sociocultural explanations Social pressure
- media coverage, (magazines, tv shows) promote thinness Jaeger et
al. 2002 Cross-cultural differences in body dissatisfaction
westernized countries seemed to show more amount of body
dissatisfaction than non-westernized countries the explanations of
disorders should be considered at a macro-level (society) rather
than as originating solely within the individual (micro-level)