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Psychological Aspects of Trauma
Published in Ian Greaves, Keith Porter, Jeff Garner, Trauma Care Manual, 2021
Ian Greaves, Keith Porter, Jeff Garner
Some survivors, particularly when there have been fatalities and when children have been involved, may feel guilty. They may even describe guilt at having survived when others have died (‘survivor guilt’). Others may believe that they did not do enough to avert the tragedy (‘performance guilt’). Reassurance that they were not responsible should be given, but it is important to avoid pre-judging circumstances on inadequate information and giving false reassurance. If in doubt, it is best to listen empathically and not make judgements or ‘take sides’, as in some cases guilt may be justified at least to some extent, as subsequent legal and other investigations sometimes confirm.
Psychosocial Assessment of GI Symptoms
Published in Kevin W. Olden, Handbook of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, 2020
Stuart J. Eisendrath, Rafael O. Gray
After the physician has gathered descriptive information from the patient abut the symptom, it is useful to gather further specific data for both medical diagnosis and psychosocial assessment. One of the most important areas to explore is the onset of the symptom. This information may have direct and obvious implications for the medical diagnosis. Psychosocially, however, this information is also a valuable source of insight. When a patient is asked, “Did anything happen or did you have any change or stress in your life at the time the symptom started?,” key information may be identified. Events such as the death of a loved one or a job change often emerge with this line of questioning. Exploring these events with the patient often yields useful diagnostic information, such as a significant display of emotion. Unresolved psychological issues are often visible in this exploration. For example, a patient complaining of abdominal pain after a motor-vehicle accident in which another passenger was killed may have a posttraumatic stress disorder. In this type of situation the pain symptom may represent survivor guilt that will be hard to resolve without addressing the psychological issues involved.
Pregnancy
Published in Kate B. Daigle, The Clinical Guide to Fertility, Motherhood, and Eating Disorders, 2019
Survivor’s guilt, such as Isabella is feeling, occurs when an individual believes they have done something wrong by surviving a tragic event where others have died or otherwise succumbed. It can manifest across the spectrum, from bittersweet feelings to all-out despair. Most commonly, survivor guilt occurs after a large-scale catastrophe (like a mass shooting or plane crashes), but it can also pop up in unexpected ways, such as with infertility or recovery from a physical or mental illness.12
Reduced awareness of surroundings is the most central domain in the network structure of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms
Published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 2020
Seon-Cheol Park, Jinseob Kim, Daeho Kim
According to the clustering of the CAPS [37,38], the PTSD symptoms were divided into reeexperiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms. Although the associated features were not included in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, they were used to estimate the network structure of the overall symptoms of PTSD in the present study. As mentioned earlier in the introduction, according to the revision from DSM-IV to DSM-5, the avoidance symptom cluster was divided into the avoidance and the negative alterations in mood and cognition, and the number of symptoms criteria for PTSD was increased. As shown in Table 1, despite the revision from DSM-IV to DSM-5, it was speculated that the DSM-IV PTSD symptoms that were evaluated with the CAPS, could cover most of the DSM-5 symptoms. In a strict sense, the negative beliefs (D2), distorted blaming of oneself or others (D3), persistent negative emotion (D4), and self-destructive or reckless behavior (E2) were newly added to the DSM-5 symptom criteria for PTSD. However, it is speculated that the symptoms of D2-D4 can be partly represented by the two associative features of guilt over acts of commission or omission and survivor guilt, in the DSM-IV symptom criteria, respectively [1–3]. One study also noted that even reckless behavior was closely related to guilt [40]. Furthermore, survivor guilt can be established in the context of encountering, being exposed to, or witnessing death and remaining alive [41]. Among the 249 subjects in present study, only 81 patients were exposed to this condition established as survivor guilt. Thus, it was not included in the network analysis of the present study.
Survivor guilt in cancer survivorship
Published in Social Work in Health Care, 2019
Susan Glaser, Kimarie Knowles, Penny Damaskos
The term “survivor guilt” is typically used to describe the experience of individuals who live through an event in which others have suffered or died such as war or a natural disaster (Hutson, Hall, & Pack, 2015). In the late 1800’s, Sigmund Freud identified survivor guilt as part of the competitive feelings he had towards his father during childhood (Hartman, 2014). In writing about his father, Freud recognized the guilt that people feel when they survive the death of another to include self-reproach (Hartman, 2014; Hutson et al., 2015; Kreitler, Barak, & Siegelman-Danieli, 2013).
Survivor guilt: The secret burden of lung cancer survivorship
Published in Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 2019
Tara Perloff, Jennifer C. King, Maureen Rigney, Jamie S. Ostroff, Megan Johnson Shen
Survivor guilt is a phenomenon linked to the interpersonal process of “surviving” harm while others do not.14 The term “survivor guilt” was coined by Drs. Stanley Cobb and Erich Lindemann in 1943.15 They defined survivor guilt as the presence of tension, loneliness, or mental pain that was precipitated by visits from loved ones, by mentioning the deceased, and by receiving sympathy.15 Robert Jay Lifton further explored survivor guilt, noting “psychic numbing,” or the cessation of feeling, as a dominating lifestyle characteristic experienced by those who suffered feelings of death guilt.16 Although survivor guilt was initially applied to surviving tragedies such as the Holocaust or Hiroshima, the term was later applied to refer to suffering guilt for surviving HIV + during the AIDS epidemic.17 Unlike survivors of war and natural disasters, survivors of the AIDS epidemic had to deal with their conflicted emotions in the presence of others whom they presumed would die. Survivor guilt during the AIDS epidemic was described as a perpetuating feeling of “why not me” associated with difficulty recognizing and communicating emotional distress and a mediator of depression among this population.17,18Since its initial application to the AIDS epidemic, survivor guilt has continued to be studied among a broad range of individuals diagnosed and treated for serious life threatening medical conditions, including transplant survivors.19,20 In these few studies, the commonality among those with survivor guilt was vulnerability in relation to his/her solidarity with others who died of the same disease.20 Whereas research shows that people diagnosed with lung cancer experience higher levels of distress than those diagnosed with other types of cancer,21 survivor guilt has been an overlooked psychosocial challenge for lung cancer survivors. Although the number of survivor guilt commentaries has been increasing in the medical and psychology literature,22–26, the majority are focused on surviving events such as war, mass shootings and suicide.27–30 Few empirical studies have yet to examine survivor guilt quantitatively among cancer survivors. The goal of the present study was to explore the prevalence and nature of survivor guilt experienced by lung cancer survivors as assessed by both a validated measure of survivor guilt that has been used with other populations as well as individuals’ perceptions of experiencing guilt attributable to surviving lung cancer. Additionally, the present study sought to explore common narrative themes experienced by lung cancer survivors suffering from high levels of survivor guilt. We hypothesized that survivor guilt would be prevalent among lung cancer survivors.