PTSD And Memory Psychology

Approximately 70 percent of adults in the U.S. have encountered a traumatic occurrence at some point in their existence while 20 percent of that population proceed to develop PTSD. Furthermore, an estimated 1 in 13 people of the U.S. (about 8 percent) will develop PTSD. For those who have served or “spent time in war zones,” 30 percent experience PTSD (“What”). Of course the rates of this mental illness varies from war to war, however, “current estimates of PTSD in military personnel who served in Iraq range from 12 percent to 20 percent” and “in Afghanistan between 6 percent and 11 percent” (“What”).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can do a range of things to the brain. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder makes the victim continuously remember the event. It was originally known as “shell shock” where vets were struggling going through daily life. Finally after the Vietnam War Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was “identified and given its name.” When these discoveries were made, proper treatment was then given to the victims. Research shows that

Another limitation that can appear when examining the memory of trauma is that trauma victims do not elicit the same response to trauma. Individuals who experience psychological trauma, physical trauma or both all remember the abuse differently. Many trauma victims may have repressed those memories or simply forget the explicit details about their traumatic experiences. Toth and Cicchetti (1998) argue that victims will elicit different responses of they are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and experience trauma on a single or multiple occurrence. Multiple experiences of trauma may give individuals a general memory of the abuse, however, it often overlooks and forget about the unique features of their traumatic experience.

There have been many diagnoses of PTSD in American soldiers. As Mark Thomas said in a magazine article, “The National Academy of Sciences have report estimated that up to 20% of 2.6 million US men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq may have it (PTSD)”(Thomas). This quote expresses that nearly 520,000 US families have been affected by this disorder. It also shows that PTSD has become a large enough issue that more and more people and

I find it troubling that our Soldier’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms are being discredited by the medical community. It appears as though there has been a shift in our commitment to the health of the men and women who served this nation. These ideas connect to the overall ideas of the unit because it provides greater insight on challenges that patients and medical professionals experience when coping with cognitive health concerns. I do not have any personal experience associated with PTSD; however, the problem that I find in this article is that it suggests the effects of trauma which causes PTSD can be measured by a universal criteria. For example, I believe this research should consider that each individual has a unique level of tolerance to trauma which may cause them to respond in varying degrees of severity. Additionally, a patient’s inability to accurately express their symptoms may play a major factor which is causing this disparity. I recommend that further research should be conducted to

It was not until the 1980’s that the diagnosis of PTSD as we know it today came to be. However, throughout history people have recognized that exposure to combat situations can have profound negative impact on the mind s and bodies of individuals in these situations. But there are other catastrophic events that can have such profound impact on people resulting in PTSD…

PTSD is listed among a group called Trauma-and-stressor-Related Disorders. For a person to be diagnosed with PTSD, they must have been exposed to, witness, or experience the details of a traumatic experience (e.g., a first responder), one that involves “actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” (APA, 2013, p. 271). (PRU, 2016, p. 66). The aforementioned definition of PTSD relates to soldiers; the manifestations and causes experienced with traditional PTSD can look somewhat different. Obvious causes of PTSD in soldiers stem from exposure to stressful circumstances within combat, exposure to the suffering and death of others, destruction, personal danger, and injury. A study on Vietnam soldiers provides insight on less obvious causes of PTSD. The study suggests

Today's veterans offten return home and find themselves experiencing PTSD symptoms as a result of combat-related stress and signfigant amount of exposure to traumatic events. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among United States Veterans has risen to great numbers in recent years due United States involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) thus far within the last 10 years 1,400,000 military service members have been engaged in these conflicts. Once Unitied States troops were deployed and participated in Operation New Dawn (OND) numbers began to rise over 2.5 million troops. (Rosenthal, J. Z., Grosswald, S., Ross, R., & Rosenthal, N. 2011) The veteran population will face exclusive types of stressors

PTSD is a serious issue faced throughout the military and the veteran population and has been recognized as such by the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, and both the Department of Veteran Affairs and private-sector health care professionals. With this issue being in the spotlight a large amount of time, money and resources have been dedicated to the research of PTSD. The research conducted as of today has revealed a tremendous amount on how memories are

In the past, veterans who disclosed suffering from signs of PTSD encountered a great deal of ignorance and bias. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (n.d.), veterans who had the illness were often considered weak, were rejected by comrades, and even faced discharge from military service. In fact, even physicians and mental health specialists often questioned the existence of the disease, which of course led to society’s misconception of PTSD in general. Sadly because of this existing prejudice it appears even today soldiers are still worried to admit having PTSD symptoms, and therefore they do not receive the proper support they need. While individuals are assured that their careers will not be affected, and seeking help is encouraged, most soldiers see it as a failure to admit having a mental health illness (Zoroya, 2013). Educating military personal of this illness, and making sure no blame is put on the veterans who encounter this disease is therefore vital.

Morris states that PTSD is often thought of as being a syndrome of remembering things too well. He adds that “the ones who ‘forget,’ they suffer later” (Morris 35).

Researchers and neuroscientist continue to study the impacts of stress and traumatic experiences on the brain. The brain itself signals nerve cells to create stress hormones, which negatively influence the physiological and psychological functioning of a person. The focus to find effective treatments for Acute Stress Disorder, PTSD and reducing stress among people is beneficial to society in many ways; including reducing medical related expenses, people reducing use of psychoactive medications and active duty soldiers improving their mental health. Although there is more research needed about meditation, yoga and MBSR as an effective treatment to reduce PTSD symptoms, overall the studies indicate many benefits to the brain from these therapy

It was hypothesized that PTSD would have a positive association with female gender, mood disorders, and substance abuse (Frounfelker et al., 2013). It was also hypothesized that sexual abuse and subjection to an increased number of traumatic events would intensify the chances of being diagnosed with PTSD. This study is an experimental design because a comparison was conducted between two groups. Researchers used posttest-only equivalent groups design, because youth were randomly assigned to groups (Houser, 2015). Youth with post-traumatic stress disorder was the control group, and youth without PTSD was the comparison group.

If we had an option to wipe out our memory, would we choose to forget about the events that involved actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of ourselves or others? For soldiers, it may be losing a close comrade in a war. For me or any other ordinary individuals, they may be natural or human-made disasters, violent personal attack, torture or even sexually abuse(Parekh). The truth is, we don’t want to be reminded of any of these terrible events that took away a small portion of our lives.

For the experiment, researchers examined the suppression-induced forgetting in individuals with PTSD. They had participants study various object-scene pairs, where they would either recall or suppress their memories for the scenes. They used 60 object-scene pairs on the participants, 48 being critical pairs. These pairs included sets that were divided into salience of the cues, emotional valences, and arousing nature of the scenes; the average rate of the scenes was 2.7 for salience cues, 3.3 for emotional valences, and 4.8 for arousal nature. This beginning TNT memory test was used to determine if inhibitory control of memory retrieval is impaired in PTSD. At the end of the experiment, participants filled out questionnaires regarding thought