Dysfuntional Psychology: Mental disorders

1. By: Daniel Sznajderman Dysfuntional Psychology: Mental disorders Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

2. Symptoms of PTSD In general, PTSD victims suffer from reduced quality of life mainly because of intrusive symptoms that do not let the individual function but rather affect them into a state of constant fear, nervousness and trauma. Hyper arousal: reminders of the trauma experienced can cause flashbacks, causing instant panic and fear. This re-experience can appear thanks to memories, nightmares, sudden flashbacks that lead to bigger and more complete ones, and thoughts. Other ways of getting to this point are trough the fear of the individual's own reaction: normal body signals such as accelerated heartbeats become danger signals that then connect with the trauma. Symptoms of PTSD are likely to cause Other problems such as depressive disorders, Social phobia • Numbness • Disconnection from others • Insomnia • Bursts of anger • Depression These symptoms can endure from monts to a lifetime • Anxiety

4. The history The actual history of the existence of PTSD dates as back as man does: The risk of exposure to trauma was most likely the same for ancient man afraid of a wild animal attack as it was for modern man afraid of a terrorist attack, because both would experience the same psychological problems having survived such traumas.

5. Although PTSD has existed over the years, it has been classified as a companion to disorders such as anxieties and depressions, or given other names, such as shell shock, that nevertheless did not cover the whole concept of PTSD. PTSD is prove to affect 10% of American women and 5% of American men The actual concept of PTSD was approved in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association and classified as a mental disorder. PTSD has been reviewed intensively in the years of 1980, 1894, 1994 and 2000 Nations worldwide who have most cases of PTSD are Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Algeria, Ethiopia and Gaza PTSD concept starts of as a traumatic event experienced that acted a big stressor that was outside of normal human experiences ( .i.e. Nazi concentration camps, wars, earthquakes, plane crashes). Therefore, PTSD is not the diagnosed for those who experience more ¨normal ¨ expereineces such as divorce, rejection or financial problems etc. These would be called ¨Adjustment disorders¨

6. Apart from the obvious fact that a patient must experience an abnormal traumatic event and show signs of PTSD symptoms, PTSD studies stress on the fact that not all individuals cope with situations the same way, which makes the difference when explaining why some people don't get PTSD from a situation or why some get it worse than others. There are no key theorists or discovers of PTSD, but more contributors: Gallup (1977), Levine (1997), Van der Kolk (1994), Nadel and Jacobs (1996) have been some of the contributors the biological perspective of PTSD Bremmer (1992) and Marmar (1994) are pioneers in the studies of dissociation as a predictor to PTSD Pynoos (1993) is the pioneer in PTSD in children and adolescents Rothschild (1996) is leader in the studies of Psychoanalytical solutions and origins of PTSD The ¨risk factors¨ or, steps of PTSD are: Pre-traumatic-Behavior of the person before the experience Traumatic-the moment, short or long, of the event Post traumatic-After the moment, where PTSD and its symptoms show up Risk of acquiring PTSD come mainly form outside experiences that affect the brain/mind. However, studies have shown that there are possibilities to get PTSD more easily genetically: The genes of a certain parent whose abilities to cope with a problem easily fall to PTSD can ensure that the children are also quite vulnerable

7. Eitiology Since PTSD is initiated by traumatic events, the brain and nervous system are key for these events to do their work in PTSD: Arousal is mediated in the Limbic System located in the center of the brain, it is this system which are in charge of primitive human responses, including the task of survival. It also plays a key role in memory. Already we have two characteristics that relate with PTSD: Survival emotions and situation Reponses, the ones that most work in dangerous traumatic events, and memory, the factor that will keep traumatic evetns sin our minds after they are over. The limbic system in interconnected with the Autonomic Nervous system, in charge of regulating heart beats, kidney, lungs and other physical changes in the body. This ANS has two branches, the Symphatic, which deals with arousement and stress, and the Parasympathetic, which deals with body reactions in moment of relax and no arousement. These always work alone, never both at the same time. Now we see a combination of psychological survival instincts, their connection with what makes us change physiologically and the effect it has on our memory, its easy to see the result: Biological

8. TRAUMATIC UNUSUAL EVENT Lymbic system activates primitive survival responses Leads to stress and fear Is responded by the ANS, who controls phsyyiiological changes This overwhelming traumatic event combined with the malfunctions of the ANS stays in the memory, affecting the person after the event is experienced Sympathetic branch and Parasympathetic branch because of overwhelming stress start working both at the same time, resulting in a freezing of the body

9. After the damage is done.... MRI studies on the brain of PTSD patients have successfully shown biological differences between affected and not affected people.... PTSD patients, thanks to sustained stress, create abnormalities in the Hippocamus ( key in memory) by reducing Hippocamus volume. This is mainly cause because hippocammal neurons are deformed because of a release of neurotoxic amino acids. Most PTSD patients have problems in blood flow to the amygdala, therefore not making it function right, something logical because the amygdala works in basic emotions and basic memory, both of who are amplified in PTSD . As can be expected, PTSD patients also decreasing workings in the parietal lobe, also key in emotions.

10. and Learning Cognitive In the case of PTSD, the eitiology of learning and behavior are most often put together because of their similiraties concerning this mental disorder It is also clear in the part of these two perspectives that PTSD must be a traumatic unusual event. Specifically, a traumatic experience filtered trough a cognitive, emotional and behavioral process called appraisal. Since the cognitive process is one that says that behavior can be understood, and therefore largely works, in processes between an environmental stimulus and a behavioral response, then it is easy to understand the connection: PTSD is an environmental stimulus that affects the inside (.i.e. memory, information processing, the cognitive perspective) and trough our own brain processing we give a behavioral response to this (the behavioral perspective, some stimulus form the outside changes our behavior). And this behavioral response, backed dup by the cognitive processes of the brain, gives as a result the symptoms and sickness of PTSD

11. Treatment Biological Because PTSD has with it certain symptoms that are disorders, such as depression or anxiety, biologic remedies for this have been a mix of finding drugs that work for these more well known disorders but also products that can treat PTSD altogether, as a unique disorder. These complicated drugs used for PTSD symptoms are meant to help in circulation in the amygdala, hipocammal volume and parietal lobe functioning.

12. There is not a definite drug for PTSD. However, other drugs to treat its symptoms can lower them , giving the patient less of a bad time and more importantly, opportunity to go to cognitive-beahvioral treatments. All these tests have been carried out with different types of antidepressives targetting depression, anxiety and insomnia. The main antidepressives are imipramine, amitriptyline, phenezine and fluoxetine. Other tests have been carried out with different approaches using antiadrenergic agents such as clodinidess and propranolol. Biological treatments vary with PTSD patients. This thanks either to each persons special functioning or the level of gravity they have of PTSD

13. Learning and Cognitive In the case of PTSD, the learning and cognitive perspectives work together as for treatments. Exposure therapy: is mostly talking and writing about the traumatic experience like psychotherapy. After expressing and remembering such thoughts, the patient becomes habituated to them: the patient learns to accept the memories without seeing them as threats.

14. Another type of exposure therapy focuses more on behavioral techniques: though cognitive therapy is used to bring back memories and feelings, behavioral techniques such as flooding and ¨behavior training¨ of anxiety and relaxation.