Traumatic experience

Quality Audit is the only option available to them. It is therefore vital that, to ensure standards of quality are maintained, a laboratory must operate its own internal audits to test its quality management system. If the internal system of audits is not operating adequately, external assessment visits are liable to be traumatic experiences, awaited with trepidation and producing unexpected and embarrassing nonconformities in several areas of operation. 

In the study by Newport and colleagues (2004), the authors attempted to determine whether cortisol hypersuppression was related to early abuse in PTSD and major depression. However, insofar as all the exposed subjects with current depression had PTSD (all except one), it was difficult to attribute the observed hypersuppression to PTSD or depression. Recently, however, Yehuda et al. observed cortisol hypersuppression following 0.50 mg DST in PTSD, and subjects with both PTSD and depression, but noted that hypersuppression was particularly prominent in persons with depression comorbidity if there had been a prior traumatic experience. Thus, cortisol hypersuppression in response to DEX appears to be associated with PTSD, but in subjects with depression, hypersuppression may be present as a result of early trauma, and possibly past PTSD (Yehuda et al. 2004b). 

The TCAs appear to reduce symptoms of reexperiencing and depression related to PTSD. In children and adolescents, imipramine may be an effective agent for ASD symptoms, especially traumatic experiences or flashbacks related to sleep onset and sleep maintenance (Robert et al., 1999). Because of their safety and side effect profile and the apparent lack of effectiveness in childhood depression, the TCAs have been supplanted by the SSRIs as first-line pharmacotherapy in the treatment of depression and anxiety in childhood. As such, these agents should be reserved for second- or third-line treatment in pediatric PTSD. 

Prevalent theories in the early 20th century focused on psychological causes such as traumatic experiences during childhood, but much of the later research has concentrated on genetics as well as on brain abnormaUties. Researchers have found the brains of schizophrenia patients to be slightly different from normal in a number of ways for instance, the fluid-filled cavities in the brain known as ventricles are larger. But no one has foimd what role, if any, these differences play in the onset and time course of the disease. 

With just such a traumatic experience, began the shamanistic vocation of the man we will now study. In his late fifties, he has been eating the mushrooms for nine years. Why did he begin "I began to eat them because I was sick," he said when asked.(7j... 

Sometimes an individual going through a traumatic experience cannot stop hyperventilating. In such a circumstance, it is recommended that the individual breathe into a paper bag or cupped hands as a useful way to avoid an increase in blood pH, which can cause the person to pass out. Explain how this works. 

On the Recollective-Analytic level, a large part of the phenomena are familiar ones in the literatures of psychoanalysis and hypnosis. The unconscious materials are unusually accessible, and the patient may recall or live through traumatic experiences from his early life. The events may be seen (eidetic images), or felt to be occurring, or vividly remembered. The patient, perhaps assisted by the therapist, can immediately review the recollection or age regression with an adult consciousness that interprets the events more appropriately than the child did. Even as the trauma is recalled or relived, a coexisting adult consciousness can draw mature conclusions. Even if abreaction does not occur, interpretation by the mature consciousness may still prove therapeutic. 

There is considerable controversy among experts as to what causes LSD psychosis. Various theories are that the LSD itself somehow damages the brain (although there are no physical signs of brain damage in people who have taken LSD) that a bad trip (like any traumatic experience) brings out mental illness in people who were already susceptible and/or that LSD breaks down the barriers between the conscious and unconscious mind at the same time that it blocks people s normal inhibitions, thus creating a very vulnerable state. 

The diagnosis of PTSD requires both a certain kind of external traumatic experience—one causing or threatening injury or death to oneself or others—and a specific emotional response to the experience intense fear, horror, or helplessness. The disorder develops when the patient continues (for more than a month) to reexperience the trauma through... 

During the recovery phase the disaster is over, and the facility attempts to return to usual operations. During this period of time, the disaster manager must be attuned to not only the operations of the organization, but to the staff as well. Plans should be in place to provide critical incident stress debriefing for those staff members who may have been exposed to traumatic experiences or worked for protracted periods of time and may be simply exhausted. It is during the recovery phase that... 

I said to her that I did not know the words and that the words were false. I was sent to a corner of the classroom and punished by the teacher. Later, after school, I was beat up by my classmates. It was a traumatic experience for me, one that made me feel estranged from society. 

Some researchers believe the reason some abused children develop MPD may have a biological basis. Studies of how brain chemistry affects memory indicate that when an intensely traumatic experience occurs, the brain s neurochemicals may be released in such large amounts they influence the area of the brain responsible for memory to pigeonhole what is remembered into separate compartments. Depending on their individual brain chemistry, some human beings may be better able to disassociate than others. About a third of people with MPD have complex partial seizures of the right temporal lobe of the brain. Some researchers think this form of epilepsy might also affect memory and be yd another cause for the disorder. 

Early, severely traumatic experiences may literally alter brain development, resulting in chronic neurotransmitter abnormalities (Stone 1988 see chapter 10). 

Family pressures to be thin can play an important role, as can peer pressure. However, such influences probably only lead to an eating disorder in those who are vulnerable on other grounds. Traumatic experiences in childhood, such as being sexually abused, are commonly recounted in the developmental histories of patients who subsequently develop anorexia. But, as most women with a history of sexual abuse do not become anorectic, such experiences cannot be considered to be specific risk factors. They probably act by reducing self-esteem. 

LeDoux (1996 . p. 255. As he emphasizes elsewhere fp. 244) it Is not really a question of a memory toss. Rather, the stress involved in a traumatic experience might, by a specific neurophysiological mechanism, prevent any memory from being formed at all. As he also notes (p. 246), this account provides a clear alternative to Freud s theory of memory suppression. 

Many patients may be undergoing psychotherapy during the continuation phase of therapy, and dosages can vary as patients deal with past traumatic experiences. During this phase symptoms continue to improve, and the maximal drug benefit (i.e., improvement of disability) accrues. Patients who responded to fluoxetine after 3 months of treatment continued to improve at 15 months. Clinical response at 3 months was identified as a predictor of long-term outcome. ... 

An increasing cause of mental dysfunction among soldiers is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is becoming more common as a result of the war in Iraq. Of 1.4 million soldiers, 13% have developed PTSD, compared with 20-30% who developed PTSD after the Vietnam War. It is clear that the brain retains images of violent events that can emerge as flashbacks years after the traumatic experiences. 

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