Relation between Trauma and Psychosis - Research Paper Example

? Relation between Trauma and Psychosis Task Introduction Researchers have been exploring the connection between traumatic symptomatology (PTSD) and psychosis. The questions asked are whether psychosis causes PTSD, whether psychosis is brought about by trauma and whether individuals respond to the traumatic event due to psychosis and PSTD. The diagnosis is carried out by examining the traumatic events encountered by a person (Hagenaars, 2009). There are many views suggesting that psychosis and PSTD are different disorders, but there is the suggestion there exist some divergences. Researchers hope there will be a connection between psychotic symptoms and symptoms of post-hat when individuals experience psychosis and are hospitalized in psychiatric centers can influence the development of PSTD. People who had experienced psychological distortions usually have problems when they remember the psychological disturbances they encountered. Many survivors of psychological troubles try to repress the encounters rather than dealing with them. Suppression of the psychological troubles is worse because it reminds the individual about the troubles. The best remedy recommended is to deal with the psychological problem rather than repressing it (Hagenaars, 2009). In people’s daily activities, they experience traumatizing events that may be associated with death threats and fatal injuries. These encounters make people live in fear and are always helpless in their actions. Situations that prompt these threats include serious injuries, abuse from loved ones and even wars. Diverse individuals have a frightening and troublesome experience when they are involved in psychological traumatizing events (Jones, 2004). The individual habitually find it intricate connecting and comprehending the traumatizing situations with the realities of the world. People have difficulties in connecting these situations thus they may at times become hysterical. Remembering the traumatizing encounters is worse because the individual feels that he has been taken back to the original place where he encountered the psychological attacks. This is the main reason why individuals might start hallucinating about certain events. These situations are distressing because they can lead to post traumatic conditions (Jones, 2004). People remember traumatizing events in different ways, and these depend on their confusion of traumatizing events to the real world. The connection of the traumatizing situations should be connected to the real world situations in a gradual process so that the confusion can be minimized. Until the connection of the traumatizing events and the real word situations are correctly matched to avoid confusion, the individual will still experience psychological troubles. Connection of the traumatizing events to the real world situation is much more different to remembering the traumatizing events. This is because a connection helps in understanding the events thus reducing the fear of re-experiencing these situations. Memory control of traumatizing moments ensures that the psychological problems interfere with the persons’ mind especially slightly, even after they reappear. The best remedy advised is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which ensures that the traumatizing memories are scrutinized, and the individual has a chance to check these thoughts, and changing his perception towards them. The patient is able to give in detail the feeling and thoughts he gets from these memories. CBT will help an individual to assimilate the thoughts to the real life memories and reduce the time he remembers these events. Individuals prefer not to confront their traumatic memories because they find them disturbing and challenging in the daily activities (Morrison, 2003). Because of this, individuals prefer engaging in behavior that will make them forget the memories. Many individuals are not ready to converse about the traumatic moments and some even become socially withdrawn. These symptoms are related to PSTD because individuals are trying as much as possible to forget these moments. Individuals who try not to remember the traumatizing events are said to be engaging in memory repression. These individuals formulate rules that will help them suppress these memories. An individual may constantly remind himself that he should not remember the traumatizing memories. Suppression is not helpful because it is temporally and only works for a short period. The best strategy is confronting the traumatizing moments and deal with them (Peres, 2007). The critics about memory suppression are how an individual continues referring to the same thing he wants to forget. Adaptation of suppression technique to an individual who are suffering traumatizing stress depends on the magnitude of the trauma. People who have great need to suppression are those who have suffered severe traumatic situations. Adapting to suppression technique depends on the changes it brings to the remembrance of memory. Individuals who engage in memory suppression are likely to suffer from severe posttraumatic stress after two years. Memory suppression is proved inappropriate to people suffering psychological problems from traumatizing situations (Peres, 2007). This is because the technique is likely to bring up the remembrance of the traumatizing moments. The process of suppression usually results in remembrance of traumatizing events and other distressing situations. Even after, the process is rendered successful; the memories can be rebounded when suppression process is relaxed. Mental suppression of traumatic events involves the individual’s effort not to remember the actual incidences. The suppression entails making awareness of the conscious part not to remember the memories. The constant check of the conscious part results to eruption of the traumatizing memories. Individuals who are in the quest to suppress their memories are usually accessing bad materials because they want to cover their memories with these materials. They look at their lives in a negative perspective to console their moods. Suppression of a target memory may result in remembrance of a person bad past experiences (Stys & Brown, 2009). The experiences may not be uniformly remembered as the target memory, thus it becomes problematic in remembering these experiences. Suppression of a specific traumatizing memory results in social withdrawal problems, where the individual uses solutions of past problems to solve the traumatizing memories. This is problematic because the individual does not consider future implications hence might have a problem. Specific memory suppression may lead to the arousal of broad categories of memories of the past. Conclusion Mental suppression as a means to solve traumatic problems of distressed people has been found to be counter-productive in three major ways. The individual is likely to remember the traumatic events, unpleasant past personal experiences are likely to be remembered, and the individual may remember only specific past memories from a broad, wide range of memories. Even if, these problems are evident in diverse individuals, there are people who are able to control their recall of trauma experiences and some do not even recollect these experiences. Individuals who have problems in controlling their memories can be helped through diversion of memory to pleasing situations. Memory diversion does not bring up traumatizing situation such as the suppression of memories. References Hagenaars, M. (2009). A Transdiagnostic Comparison of Trauma and Panicmemories in PTSD, Panic Disorder, And Healthy Controls. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 40 412–422. Jones, D. (2004). Street Gangs: A Review of Theory, Interventions, And Implications for Corrections. Research Report. Pg 1-56. Retrieved On October 27, 2011 from: Morrison, A. (2003). Relationships between Trauma and Psychosis: A Review and Integration. The British Psychological Society. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 331–353. Retrieved On October 27, 2011 from: Peres, J. (2007). Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims. Journal of Religion and Health, 46:343–350. Retrieved On October 27, 2011 from: Stys, Y. & Brown, S. (2004). A Review of the Emotional Intelligence Literature and Implications for Corrections: Research Branch Correctional Service of Canada. Pg 1-67. Retrieved On October 27, 2011 from: Read More