Childhood Trauma Research Paper
PTSD and Childhood Trauma
By Bob Murray, PhD
Over the years my wife, and fellow therapist, Alicia Fortinberry, and I have treated many people who were suffering from what is called post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD including a number of Vietnam veterans. In talking to the vets I noticed that a pattern was developing which caused me to widen my enquiries to veterans who went through the same experiences in Asia, but who did not have the symptoms of PTSD.
I have not had the time to do a formal study, but I have come to some very interesting conclusions regarding the disorder, which have been confirmed by some recent studies. I have become convinced of the strong link between PTSD and depression and between both of those and childhood …show more content…
For example, some patients will present more severe symptoms of hyperarousal with severe depression. The re-experiencing of events is often mis-diagnosed as "obsessiveness" within a depressive disorder. Hyperarousal symptoms may be mis-diagnosed as insomnia and anxiety within a major depressive episode. Other PTSD victims are mis-diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Danger of Misdiagnosis
People with symptoms such as social avoidance, hyperarousal or anxiety may have also self-medicated their condition with alcohol to mute the symptoms and, as with active alcoholics, they may deny their drinking. Still other patients may experience mixed obsessive recollections with flashbacks and, at times, auditory and visual hallucinations. These patients may be mis-diagnosed as dissociative or psychotic.
Patients with severe insomnia, symptoms of hyperarousal, severe irritability and racing thoughts may be misdiagnosed as manics or hypermanic borderline patients (patients whose mania centers around a desperate fear of …show more content…
Andrei Novac, MD, associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine, writing in Psychiatric Times [(2001) 17:4] notes the enormous increase in the speed of the availability of information concerning traumatic events. "For instance, news of natural disasters, catastrophes and genocides are made widely available, instantaneously, via 24-hour cable news networks, creating an enormous pool of spectators to negative events. This is significant, as the study of traumatic stress has determined that not only victims but also those being confronted with and witnessing traumatic events may be vulnerable to post traumatic stress disorder."
In other words the primary trauma may be one that happened to a child, or one that a child witnessed and similarly the secondary trauma, the one which actually triggers PTSD may also be one which the sufferer witnessed rather than actually
By Bob Murray, PhD
Over the years my wife, and fellow therapist, Alicia Fortinberry, and I have treated many people who were suffering from what is called post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD including a number of Vietnam veterans. In talking to the vets I noticed that a pattern was developing which caused me to widen my enquiries to veterans who went through the same experiences in Asia, but who did not have the symptoms of PTSD.
I have not had the time to do a formal study, but I have come to some very interesting conclusions regarding the disorder, which have been confirmed by some recent studies. I have become convinced of the strong link between PTSD and depression and between both of those and childhood …show more content…
For example, some patients will present more severe symptoms of hyperarousal with severe depression. The re-experiencing of events is often mis-diagnosed as "obsessiveness" within a depressive disorder. Hyperarousal symptoms may be mis-diagnosed as insomnia and anxiety within a major depressive episode. Other PTSD victims are mis-diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Danger of Misdiagnosis
People with symptoms such as social avoidance, hyperarousal or anxiety may have also self-medicated their condition with alcohol to mute the symptoms and, as with active alcoholics, they may deny their drinking. Still other patients may experience mixed obsessive recollections with flashbacks and, at times, auditory and visual hallucinations. These patients may be mis-diagnosed as dissociative or psychotic.
Patients with severe insomnia, symptoms of hyperarousal, severe irritability and racing thoughts may be misdiagnosed as manics or hypermanic borderline patients (patients whose mania centers around a desperate fear of …show more content…
Andrei Novac, MD, associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine, writing in Psychiatric Times [(2001) 17:4] notes the enormous increase in the speed of the availability of information concerning traumatic events. "For instance, news of natural disasters, catastrophes and genocides are made widely available, instantaneously, via 24-hour cable news networks, creating an enormous pool of spectators to negative events. This is significant, as the study of traumatic stress has determined that not only victims but also those being confronted with and witnessing traumatic events may be vulnerable to post traumatic stress disorder."
In other words the primary trauma may be one that happened to a child, or one that a child witnessed and similarly the secondary trauma, the one which actually triggers PTSD may also be one which the sufferer witnessed rather than actually