Acute Stress Disorder (ASD)

Acute Stress Disorder (ASD): exposure to a major stressor, with symptoms of anxiety, dissociation, nightmares, concentration/sleep problems, and moments of "relive" event in dreams/flasbacks 1 month following the event ●​ Occurs immediately after the tramuatic event Posttramuatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): exposure to major stressor, with symptoms of anxiety, dissociation, nightmares, concentration/sleep problems, and moments of "relive" event in dreams/flasbacks, lasting 6 months or later after the event. Can be dianoised if symtpoms last for more thna a month Treamtnets: Drugs (SSRI, or benzodizepines) or CBT or Debriefing/Psychoeducation & Support ●​ ASD doesn't mean develop PTSD ●​ Occurs 6 months or later after the event ●​ Treated by psychotherapy or anxiety control drugs ●​ Women 2x more likely than men, but have similar symptoms -> different in children ○​ Decreased hippocampus size (long-term declarative memories) ○​ Changes in brain connections involving fear (amygdala hyperactivity) ○​ Lack of activity in anterior cingulate cortex related to threat response ●​ More likely to develop dementia ●​ ASD and PTSD: more likely to identify tramua-realted pictures than neutral pictures (preferntial processing of tramua-related info) ○​ Heightened brain proccessing in brain areas linked to associative learning and priming Cogntiive Factors: illogical, irrational thought process Magnification; interpret situations as far more dangerous, harmful, or important than they are ●​ "make mountains out of molehills" ●​ Interpret a racing heartbeat as a heart attack All-or-Nothing Thinking: believe that one's performance must be perfect or the result will be a total failure Overgeneralization: disortion of thinking, draws sweeping conclusions based on 1 incident/event and applies that conclusion to future events even if they are unreleated, interpret a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat/failure ●​ Jumping to conclusions without facts that support it Minimization; give little or no importance to one's successes or positive events/traits Behavioral Factors: learned classically conditioning Biological Factors: learned classically conditioning ●​ Anxiety meds: act on key neurotrasmitter systems, impacting GABA, serotonin, norephinphrine ●​ Genetic basis for disorders ○​ PTSD: influence both risk of developing the disorder and likelihood of being involved in potentially dangerous situations ○​ Amydala: more active in PSTD, social anxiety disorder -> suggests excessive conditioning and exaggerated responses to stimuli ○​ Reductions in gray matter in ventral anterior cingulate grus and left inferior frontal gryus in anxiety disorders ○​ Reductions in gray matter in dorsal anterior cingulate gryus and left/right insula -> 6 psychological disorders Cultural Variations: ●​ Anxiety Disorders around world ○​ Latin America: ataque de nervios "attack of nerves" fits of crying and shouting, heat sensations, aggressive after stressful death of loved one ○​ China: koro, fear of one's genitals are shrinking ○​ Japan: taijin kyofusho (TKS), fear that one will do something embarrassing/inappropriate in public Dissociative Disorders: there is a break in conscious awareness, memory, and sense of idenitity ●​ "split" ex. Drive somewhere but don't remember the trip "automatic pilot" where conscious mind was thinking about school while lower conscious was driving ○​ Disorder is more pronounced and involuntary ○​ Can be in PSTD and borderline personality disorder Dissociative Amnesia: can't remember personal info or specific personal events (episodic long-term memory) ●​ Different from retrograde amnesia: memory loss from physical injury/"blow" ○​ This one is from a mental "blow" ○​ Ex. Solider losing his friend in war ●​ Can resurface quickly or after long delay ●​ Cam occur with/without fague "flight", suddenly travels away from home (the flight) but can't remember the trip or personally info/identity and may take on a whole new identity in the new place Dissociative identify Disorder (DID): AKA Multiple Personality Disorder, person seems to have 2 or more distinct personalities within 1 body ●​ Has a "core" personality that knows nothing about the other personalities ●​ Experiences "blackouts" or losses of memory and time ●​ Unsettling moments of "awakening" in an unfamiliar place or with people who call them another name ●​ Co-occur with borderline personality disorder ●​ Trancelike amok where suddenly is highly agitated and violent but with no memory of it Causes of DID: Result from tramua ●​ Symptons serve to regulate the fear response ●​ Sociocognitive model: those with coexisting or ambiguous psychological symptoms, DID may unintentionally constructed by therapist cuing, media, sociocultural expectations ●​ Psychodynamic Theory: repression of threatebubg/unacceptable thoughts/behavior as a defense mechanism, motivated forgetting ○​ Ex. History of childhood abuse ○​ Loss of memory/awareness from traumatic event is adaptive in that it reduces emotional pain Cognitive & Behavioral Connected to DID: person may feel guilt, anxiety, shame when thinking about disturbing experiences so starts to avoid thinking about them ●​ "thought avoidance" negatively reinforced by reduction of anxiety and unpleasant feelings -> becomes habit of "not thinking about" these things so they "think about something else" so the experience of pain is decreased ●​ Positive reinforcers: attention and help from others and professionals who talks about "feeling like someone" else so they report more feelings and elaborate, shaping Biological Connections to DID: people with depersonalization/derealization disorder feel detached/disconencted from themselves, bodies, and surroundings ●​ Lower brain activity in areas for sense of body awareness ○​ With PTSD: lower activity in amygdala, but higher in medial prefrontal areas -> overall emotional "overmodulation" ○​ Significant differences in brain activity based on the different "personalities" ○​ May be more elaborate when forming memories and have better memory recall