Post Traumatic Growth Inventory

• Score: The inventory provides a Total Score and five Primary Dimensions: Negative Mood, Interpersonal Problems, Ineffectiveness, Anhedonia, and Negative Self Esteem.

As I helplessly watch my fifteen year old roommate fall to pieces in front of me, I feel everything around me slow to a crawl. Blood pounds my ear drums, I feel the color drain from my cheeks, and my feet take me forward as if they have a mind of their own. I fall to my knees and suddenly everything speeds up again – the pounding in my ear drums intensifies, my hands are trembling but I manage to grasp the side of the bed in an attempt to bring myself close to her. Her face is buried into her sheet. Muffled screaming escapes her as I whisper gentle reassurances in her ear, hoping with everything I have that she can hear me. I know she doesn’t. Even if she does, she can’t make sense of it right now. She’s stuck somewhere else, somewhere she revisits every day of her life and every time she closes her eyes to sleep.

When looking at the direction the Criminal Justice System should take in reference to the future, one needs to look into the past. This is a concept that most governmental bodies fail to due adequately. The saying “history repeats itself” is a proven fact which is ignored over and over. The military is a clear example of this as it relates to our veterans. The most ignored aspect of the military is the re-introduction of the returning veteran into the community. This aspect has now become a growing issue in the criminal justice system and will continue to grow as we fight the war on terror around the world.

Today, 42.5 million Americans suffer from a mental illness. There are many different types of mental illnesses that affect over half of the population. Some are more severe than others, but still equally important. Two of the common disorders you hear about today are Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

What is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? The American Psychiatric Association (2013) describes Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a serious disorder that can put the mental and physical health of an individual with PTSD at risk (p.3). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder can be formed by a variety of situations. The American Psychiatric Association (2013) states that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder can be formed by the exposure to death, rape, any serious injury, and many other stressful situations (p. 3). The American Psychiatric Association (2013) also describes the symptoms of PTSD as “irritability, aggressiveness, self-destructiveness, reckless behavior, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response, difficulty concentrating, and sleep disturbances

Exposure to traumatic experiences has always been a part of human life. From back hundreds of years ago till now, for example, attacks by saber tooth tigers or twenty-first century terrorists have likely led to similar psychological responses in survivors of such violence. Literary accounts offer the first descriptions of what we now call posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For example, authors including Homer (The Iliad), William Shakespeare (Henry IV), and Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities) wrote about traumatic experiences and the symptoms that followed such events. The PTSD diagnosis has filled an important gap in psychiatry in that its cause was the result of an event the individual suffered, rather than a personal weakness. PTSD became a diagnosis with influence from several social movements, such as Veteran, feminist, and Holocaust survivor advocacy groups. Research about Veterans returning from combat was a critical piece to the creation of the diagnosis. War takes a physical and emotional toll on service members, families, and their communities. So, the history of what

Our most vivid memories are those tied with strong emotional memory components. For those suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD), the emotional component of a memory makes recalling certain life events painful and debilitating. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that develops from the exposure to a traumatic event and often seen in comorbid patients also afflicted with alcoholism, depression, and general anxiety. Because this disorder is so debilitating, finding prevention treatments becomes essential to ensuring the mental health of so many individuals world-wide.

According to a study done by the Nebraska Department of Veteran Affairs, “An estimated 7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, with women (10.4%) twice as likely as men (5%) to develop PTSD”. The common reasons for men to get PTSD is rape, combat exposure, childhood neglect, and childhood physical abuse. Women are more susceptible to PTSD because of rape, sexual molestation, physical attack, being threatened with a weapon, and childhood physical abuse. In 2013, the Boston marathon was bombed and 3 people died and over 200 were injured. Only a minority of people who were exposed to this attack as well as the subsequent manhunt and city wide shut down, will develop PTSD because the brain has other ways to heal itself. Some might develop relatively temporary anxiety and/or depression for example, they may have “survivor’s guilt”. Where the person who goes through a life-threatening experience and lives becomes depressed because he/she believes that they should not have been the one to live or they feel like it might be their fault that they were the ones to cause the incident in the first place. But for most, they will have the usual emotional response but will not have any illness at all. The most common place most people hear about PTSD might be from the news when they talk about the soldiers who come back from war. A study by the RAND Center for Military Policy Research shows that, out of 2.7 million Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, more than 20% of veterans will be diagnosed with PTSD or have signs of PTSD. Out of those 20%, studies show that 5% to 50% of veterans will not seek out treatment and those who do only report “minimally adequate” treatment

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a trauma-based mental disorder which could occur at any time throughout an individual’s life once a trauma is experienced, observed, or learned. The PTSD diagnosis is the culmination of a traumatic event in which the individual begins to have adverse symptoms such as emotional distress, hypervigilance, avoidance, concentration issues, anger, and uncontrollable negative thoughts about themselves and the world around them. The individual’s sense of significance, mastery, and formed attachments become compromised by their response to the trauma (American Psychiatric Association & American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Many individuals tend to experience a traumatic event that will change their entire lives short-term or long-term wise. Exposure to traumatic events are more common in military veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. By becoming exposed to the harsh conditions of a war-zone, such as violence or bloodshed, military veterans evoke a psychological response known as the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The common symptoms of PTSD tend to be aggressiveness, disturbances in sleep, and or paranoia. PTSD has the ability to severely damage the emotional and mental well-being of an individual. Not only that, but it also affects the way how one behaves around others. At times, PTSD and its severity goes unnoticed. This is a major reason as to why this topic will be explored in this paper. It is to bring awareness and urge the importance to go through treatments to cure

Childhood is a time for playdates and learning, a time for big dreams and imaginary adventures. Safety and security should not be questions that linger in uncertainty. However, this is not the case for many children across the globe. Thousands of children from all walks of life each day are faced with unspeakable horror and must deal with the resulting trauma from then on. However, in children, managing this trauma takes a different toll on the mind and heart than it does in adults. While the type of trauma may vary in pervasiveness across countries, trauma occurring in childhood has the ability to cause long term damage to the growing neurological functioning in the brain and negatively influence children’s spiritual development, wounding

According to Webster, Post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological reaction occurring after experiencing a highly stressing event (as wartime combat, physical violence, or a natural disaster) that is usually characterized by depression, anxiety, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and avoidance of reminders of the event —abbreviation PTSD (webster, 2003).

The Cope Inventory was develop to assess clients on how clients would respond to stressful events in their lives. The COPE inventory has sixty questions that need to be answered honestly. This learner answered all the questions in order, 1 – 60 (Carver et al., 1989). Some of the questions mean different stressors to different people. This assessment helps people to learn something about themselves. I scored each scale and determined what number that I would relate myself to doing.

Psychological consequences of a traumatic events will be the target of this literature review. An event that causes an individual to feel as though their life is being threatened or is at risk of great harm can be a direct result of traumatic experience. Often these experiences correlate with the emotions of feeling helpless, and terrified, both in which can lead towards post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Sherin & Nemeroff, 2011). According to Breslau & Kessler (2001) approximately 80% of individuals have been exposed to at least one traumatic event in their lifetime (p. #); often traumatic events include divorce, natural disasters, violence of war, as well as domestic violence.

Thompson and colleagues (2009): Physical and sexual abuse was moderately positively correlated with positive symptom severity (especially grandiosity) among ethnic minority participants (N=17), while general trauma was positively correlated with affective symptoms among Caucasian participants (N=13).