Memory, identity and post-traumatic stress disorder

Recent research indicates that the reactions to a traumatic event we know as PTSD are complicated because they may incorporate two quite separate sets of processes. One set of processes is concerned with specific reactions to extreme threat. The other set of processes is concerned with the challenge the trauma poses to the victim's beliefs and identity. These processes are not specific to trauma, hence the overlap between symptoms of PTSD and other disorders. Repeated exposure to threat will lead to the longer term establishment of identities that have lost much capacity for optimism, trust or intimacy. But even a single event which is merely upsetting for one person may fatally undermine the positive aspirations of another. Negative reactions to trauma go beyond thoughts and include impulses, imagined pictures, emotions, such as anger and shame, a feeling of being more than one person and a sense of disconnection from others. These individual responses are also highly varied and yet at the same time contain their own internal organisation, suggesting that a helpful framework for understanding them is the social psychological approach to identity involving multiple selves. Treating PTSD involves understanding how the survivor adapts to these twin challenges of memory and identity.

Conference

English

Chris Brewin