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The exploration and skill-building phase
Published in Stacy K. Nakell, Treatment for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, 2023
Processing trauma involves getting rid of the emotional and physiological residue of the experience. The only way to resolve the need for dissociation and avoidance strategies is to reconnect trauma-related emotions, body reactions, thoughts and consequences. Courtois and Ford (2013) explain: “Emotion processing enables the client to safely experience and appraise in present time the physical sensations, emotions and thoughts that he or she had interpreted as signals of overwhelming danger and associated powerlessness after the trauma” (p. 151).
Sense of safety dynamics – what processes build, protect and reveal Humpty’s sense of safety?
Published in Johanna Lynch, A Whole Person Approach to Wellbeing, 2020
Loss of broad awareness can be due to scattered, fragmented, blocked, entranced or hyper-focused attention. Each of these processes decrease awareness of the whole – whether physiological (e.g., intoxication or illness); neurological (e.g., dementia or trauma-related altered states of consciousness); functional (e.g., preoccupation or distraction by noise); relational (e.g., disconnection or loss of trust) or intrapsychic (e.g., rumination or avoidant inattention). Derealisation, depersonalisation, flashbacks, amnesia, emotional numbing, dissociation, somatisation, dysmorphic body experiences, distractibility and experiences of self as empty or divided are names for some of these altered states. At its most extreme, loss of broad awareness can cause a kind of blindness, a switching off, a forgetting, a numbing, an absence.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Published in Alison Brodrick, Emma Williamson, Listening to Women After Childbirth, 2020
Alison Brodrick, Emma Williamson
Perinatal negative emotional reactions and perinatal dissociative reactions have also been shown to be predictive of PTSD symptoms (Olde et al, 2005). Dissociation is a psychological phenomenon whereby a person finds themselves feeling detached from themselves and their emotions, perhaps with a perception of stimuli around them seeming unreal. This can be in the form of an out-of-body experience, a temporal coping mechanism which women describe as floating above the scene or separation of a body part from the main body (Bateman et al, 2017). It may also be accompanied by memory loss. Olde et al (2005) studied this phenomenon in relation to childbirth because it had been shown to be a significant predictor of trauma in the general literature. They found that women who experienced an instrumental delivery and reported high levels of dissociation were at higher risk of developing PTSD than women who described high levels of dissociation during a spontaneous delivery.
The Medical Somatic Dissociation Questionnaire Assessment For Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Brief Report
Published in Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 2023
Uri Balla, Rachel Lev-Wiesel, Atreyee Bhattacharyya, David Israeli, Shir Daphna-Tekoah
Trauma survivors often use dissociation as a defense mechanism; it often becomes embedded in the mental processes that shape a victim’s way of being in the world long after the traumatic exposure (Classen et al., 1993; Lahav & Elklit, 2016). Dissociation is a mental process that produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, sensations, or sense of self. During the dissociation process, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be (Lev-Wiesel, 2004; Somer & Somer, 1997). Previous studies have indicated that adult survivors of CSA show heightened levels of persistent dissociation compared to those with no history of CSA (Lev-Wiesel & Daphna-Tekoah, 2010). Research on adults has demonstrated that the validated Medical Somatic Dissociation Questionnaire (MSDQ) differentiates between adults who have experienced CSA and those who have not (Daphna-Tekoah et al., 2019). Therefore, the current study’s main objective is to adapt the MSDQ to children and youth and explore the extent to which the MSDQ may differentiate between sexually and non-sexually abused minors.
Dissociative Symptoms are Highly Prevalent in Adults with Narcolepsy Type 1
Published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 2022
Laury Quaedackers, Hal Droogleever Fortuyn, Merel Van Gilst, Martijn Lappenschaar, Sebastiaan Overeem
Dissociative symptoms are not limited to dissociative disorders, but can occur in a variety of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia. Often, dissociation in these other conditions has been found to be related to traumatic experiences. Because of the presence of hypnagogic hallucinations, narcolepsy patients have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders (Plazzi et al., 2015). However, a role for trauma in the emergence of dissociation in narcolepsy patients has not been established, nor have there been reports of an overrepresentation of PTSD in narcolepsy patients. So, although there seems to be some overlap in symptoms between schizophrenia and narcolepsy, phenotypically the hypnagogic hallucinations in narcolepsy have been shown to be different from hallucinations of schizophrenic patients. Moreover, delusions are exceptional in narcolepsy patients, but hallmarks in schizophrenic patients (Fortuyn et al., 2009).
The Perpetration of Violence and the Experience of Trauma: Exploring Predictors of PTSD Symptoms in Male Violent Offenders
Published in International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2020
Marguerite Ternes, Barry S. Cooper, Dorothee Griesel
Dissociation refers to the experience of psychological detachment from physical and emotional events. It is common for both individuals with mental illness and mentally healthy people to report dissociative experiences in reaction to traumatic events (Candel & Merckelbach, 2004). In the clinical literature these symptoms are termed peritraumatic dissociative experiences (Van der Kolk, Van der Hart, & Marmar, 1996). The immediate effects of peritraumatic dissociation are likely adaptive, in that they protect the individual from intense negative emotional states, such as helplessness and fear. However, in the long-term, dissociation is maladaptive, increasing the risk of PTSD (Eisen & Lynn, 2001; Lensvelt-Mulders et al., 2008; Morgan et al., 2001). Much of the research on peritraumatic dissociation has considered it in relation to being the victim of violence (e.g., Schauer & Elbert, 2010), although it has also been associated with the commission of violent crimes, especially reactive violence (McLeod, Byrne, & Aitken, 2004; Moskowitz, 2004). The nature of the relationship between violence and dissociation is unclear; researchers have not yet determined whether dissociation is a cause or consequence of committing a violent act (McLeod et al., 2004). Although research on dissociation has been criticized for relying too much on retrospective accounts, which are limited by memory, subjectivity, and potentially malingering (Candel & Merckelbach, 2004; Moskowitz, 2004), it is clear that there is an association between dissociative experiences at the time of a violent event and PTSD symptoms.