Trauma And Trauma

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The difference between ‘normal’ distress and trauma?

A History of Trauma research
Psychological trauma has a long history dating back to Homer the "first teacher", of tragedy. As an etiological factor in mental disorders” ,“trauma....”was first reported by Janet in the 19th century (van der Kolk, 2004) doducmenting that a person stored traumatic memories differently to ordinary memories.
Breuer and Freud (1895) – who were studing “hysteria” laregly agreed. Although the two men had slightly differing views about where and how a patient 's traumatic memories were stored Breuer; misplaced and inaccessible Freud; repressed (Leys, 2000) they both agreed that ‘hysteria’ whilst pathogenic in nature was a result of trauma.
In recent times ‘hysteria’ has been re-branded as PTSD and the American Psychiatric Association (1980) report that “controversy has haunted the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder ever since”. Spiegal in Yehuda (1999) posits that ‘progress in the field is ‘rarely linear” coming …show more content…

They are summed up as threefold; evidence of intrusive recollections; avoidance of associated trauma stimuli and symptoms of increased arousal (van der Kolk, 2004). Symptoms can be re-experienced days or months after the event triggered by sounds, sights, smell or unexpectedly without warning. The intrusive recollections may be experienced as flashbacks or nightmares and the person may then start to avoid things that remind them of the event such as going near ‘the scene of an accident’. In hyper-Arousal the person may appear jumpy, irritable or hyper vigilant and this in turn may affect their sleep or concentration. People suffering PTSD often present to the GP with physical symptoms such as, headaches, tiredness, and chest pain and in some cases an increase in drinking or smoking habits is

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