Social Psychology : The Different Causes Of Cognitive Psychology

This analysis persists of key points, about The article “Stress and the brain by Janet Elder”. The author forged an excellent informative piece to educate the reader on the effects of stress on the brain. The author states that “Stress can be both good and bad. It is part of life, and your brain and body respond to it”. The author clarifies that, "Whether stress is harmful or helpful depends on the amount of stress, how severe it is, and how long it lasts".

Post-traumatic stress disorder abbreviated PTSD is a response to traumatic events in someone’s life. Traumatic events are events that provoke fear, helplessness or horror in response to a threat or extreme stressor (Yehuda, 2002). Soldiers and other military members are at a much higher risk to Post traumatic stress disorder due to combat and other stressful situations they are put into. People effected by Post-traumatic stress disorder will have symptoms including flashbacks, avoidance of things, people or places that remind them of the traumatic event. Also, hyper arousal which includes insomnia, irritability, impaired concentration and higher startle reactions. In this paper I will discuss post-traumatic stress disorder, its signs, symptom and effects on culture as portrayed in the movie, American Sniper.

Society defines stress as anything which forces us to change. Through technical terms stress is defined as “a negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taking or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope.” To explaining stress researchers came up with the “Cognitive appraisal model”, this system works to tell us whether we believe we have enough resources to deal with the situation without becoming stressed. For instance as a now college student those who have had previous experience taking finales in high school can have less stress than those who have not taken it. This is because they have previous experience with taking the tests and learning how to study while those who have never taken one can become extremely stressed over the unknown of the test. Stress is one of the sub branches that is attached to the world of health psychology. Health psychology is a quickly growing branch that deals with the way the mind and body work together. Psychologists that work in the health field came up with the biopsychosocial model. This model explains the complex interaction with biological, psychological, and social factors.

The study of psychology refers to collective trauma as the effect experienced by many people in the aftermath of a tragedy or event. The pain of collective traumatic disorders is common among soldiers who experienced military combat, but has the potential to affect an entire community. Although, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can alter relationships with the family and the community, future generations will not have to endure combat directly to experience collective trauma. Many Veterans suffering from PTSD might shy away from others due to stigmas associated with the diagnosis. Some might have difficulty concentrating, or have guilty feelings, cannot find work, feel helpless, fearful, or have a loss of interest in usual activities. All

Psychology majors are taught about many different diseases of the mind, one of which is PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Defined by the American Psychological Association, PTSD is “an anxiety problem that develops after extremely traumatic events, such as combat, crime, an accident, or natural disaster” (‘PTSD: National Center for PTSD’). Symptoms include intrusive memories, survivor’s guilt,

The results of the studied showed that stress induced SP participants recalled fewer items on test 2 than non-stressed SP participants, whereas there was not a difference in the RP group. Memory impairment caused by stress only resulted in the SP group. In addition, the stressed RP participants showed the performed equally to the non-stressed RP implying that stress has no affect on memory when retrieval practice is used to learn material. The researchers also found that stress had no immediate effect on memory for either group of

PTSD affects nearly 60% of men and 50% of women. Annually, 5.2 million adults suffer from PTSD. 20 out of 100 Veterans who served in Iraq suffer from PTSD, and 15 out of every 100 Veterans who served in Vietnam suffer from PTSD (5). However, PTSD is not limited to veterans; These symptoms contain negative changes in thinking and mood, including negative feelings about oneself or others, inability to experience positive emotions, and feeling emotionally numb, and changes in emotional reactions, including angry outburst, aggressive behavior, guilt and shame, and self-destructive behavior (1). Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, discussed by Pete Walker in Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map For Recovering from Childhood Trauma, is a more severe form of PTSD, which contains emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, inner critic, and social

Although controversial when first introduced, the PTSD diagnosis has filled an important hole in psychiatric theory and practice when dealing with this plethora of symptoms. Throughout history the significant change brought upon by the theorization of the PTSD concept was the stipulation that the origination agent was outside the individual rather than an inborn weakness. The key to understanding the scientific theorem and clinical determination of PTSD is the concept of

The disorder did not become more common until it was affecting the veterans at war who are haunted by the tragedies of war. “PTSD did not become an official disorder until the American Psychiatric Association added it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-III in 1980.” (Friedman) The DSM-III is a criterion for the classification of mental disorders that was first published in 1952. In today’s world, it is known as the DSM-V. PTSD in the DSM-III was classified as an anxiety disorder. However, today PTSD is now diagnosed as a trauma and stressor-related disorder. What we know now about PTSD is that under the classification of trauma and stressor- related disorder, a person must be exposed to a life stress related event to cause the disorder. What we also know now about PTSD is that it can occur in one of four ways: “direct exposure to trauma; witnessing trauma in person; learning a close friend or relative experienced trauma (indirect exposure); and repeated or extreme indirect exposure to aversive details of the event”

For many, PTSD is a big issue. Because of this, research has started to look at its causes. First to understand PTSD, one must examine the

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) added post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to their third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual In 1980. PSTD was popularized as an adversity but since then the psychiatric theory and practice gap has been filled. PTSD was considered a traumatic etiological (individual) occurrence as oppose to a hereditary occurrence (Friedman, 2015). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a health psychology topic that needs to be discussed more than it is. PTSD stems from an event that has taken place in a person’s life such as an act of violence, car accident, or a natural disaster. Experiencing such events as these can have a deep impact on a person’s life. These events can be identified as an isolated

The conceptualization of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was formally recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and first included in the 10th edition of the International Classification of Disease (Bisson, 2007). The description of stressor Criteria (A) in the DSM-III-R “are described as rare and if Criterion A events did occur it is suggested that initial distress should develop in the majority of exposed individuals as a response” (Resnick, Kilpatrick, Dansky, Saunders, & Best, 1993, p. 984). However, accounts of PTSD have existed for centuries under different names and ideologies e. g. shell shock, battle fatigue, Da Costa’s Syndrome. In the time of Freud, it’s causes were attributed to an individual’s character deficit. During World War II is was understood to be a normal reaction to persistent combat.

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory explains psychological functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. Triadic reciprocal causation is a system assuming human action as a result of an interaction with the environment, behavior, and a person. Bandura explains "person" as being a cognitive factor such as memory, anticipation, and planning. It is because of these cognitive capacities that some people can select or restructure their environment.

A study conducted by Johnson, Lubin and Rosenheck (1997) on Vietnam War soldiers concluded that stress experienced from loneliness ,angry and resentful feelings had a causal effect on soldiers diagnosed with PTSD who felt detached from the society.

“Stress is a silent disease” (Doctor Hobel). Over the years, stress has played a major rule in a large majority of people’s lives throughout the United States. When thought about, it is said to be extremely surprising as to how many people really have stress in each individual’s life. People do not consider what the reasons are for the feelings and emotions they experience. There are all different types of stress, and stress can do a lot to a person. Each person also handles stress in a different way. Some can handle more than others, because every single person’s body works in a different way. Stress has also been told to cause people to act out of character (Dr. David Posen). They often do not act the way they usually would while under