Symptoms of traumatic responses
Psychobiological alterations
- Hypervigilance
- Irritability
- Proneness to anger/irritability
- Emotional lability
- Exaggerated startle response
- Sleep disturbances
- Problems with concentration/memory
- Dissociation
- Somatic expressions of PTSD
- Vulnerability to medical illness
Intrusive thoughts or recollections
- Nightmares or night terrors
- Emotional (somatic memories, sense of smell often affected)
- Acting out (reliving the trauma - behavioural patterns)
- Re-enactment behaviours
- Perceptual illusions –visual and auditory hallucinations
- Dissociations – flashbacks (various intensities)
- Memory retrieval – triggering memory of past traumatic events
Avoidance, numbing and denial
- Avoidance
- Emotional constriction/numbness
- Loss of active social or interpersonal engagements
- Social or geographical isolation
- Desexualization – loss of libido
- Estrangement and detachment
- Obsessive-compulsive behaviours
- Diversion as defense
- Tension reduction strategies – addictions, risk-taking
Self-concept, ego-states, personal identity and self-structure
- Demoralization
- Ego fragmentation
- Identity diffusion – loss of role identity
- Proneness to dissociation, hopelessness and helplessness
- Vulnerability
- Loss of spirit and vitality
- Dysphoria, reduced ability to experience pleasant events
- Depression
- Shame, guilt – or both (military)
- Mistrust, cynical attitude
- Faulty cognitions about self and the world
Avoidance, numbing and denial
- Alienation
- Mistrust
- Detachment
- Self-destructive relationships
- Somatic tension
- Boundary problems with others
- Issues of loss – loss of self-perception
- Abandonment/rejection from others
- Impulsivity
- Object-relation difficulties
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