PTSD Treatments

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be helped. Today, a good amount of treatments are available for PTSD. This anxiety disorder may cause a lot of people to keep closed up, but therapy and counseling may actually be one of the best ways to improve their condition.Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is one type of such counseling. In cognitive therapy, a therapist helps patients understand and change how they think about the trauma and its aftermath. The goal is to understand how certain thoughts about their trauma cause stress and make the symptoms worse. According to the National Institute of Mental Health  "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a form of psychotherapy designed to help a person develop a more adaptive response to a fear" (NIMH-CBT). The NIMH states that "CBT is a blend of two therapies: cognitive therapy (CT) and behavioral therapy (BT)" (NIMHs-CBT). As a combination of the two, CBT emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do.Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, involves carefully and gradually “exposing” yourself to thoughts, feelings, and situations that remind you of the trauma. Therapy also involves identifying upsetting thoughts about the traumatic event–particularly thoughts that are distorted and irrational—and replacing them with more balanced picture.

Another way to help deal with severe anxiety and PTSD are medical drugs. Another possibly effective treatment are medications. For example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are a type of antidepressant medicine, may be used. These help people be less sad and worried. They appear to be helpful, and for some people they are very effective. SSRIs include citalopram (Celexa), fluoxetine (such as Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), and sertraline (Zoloft). They often work, because chemicals in your brain affect the way you feel. For example, when you have depression you may not have enough of a chemical called serotonin. SSRIs raise the level of serotonin in your brain.

Medications are often used to help speed up another treatment that the patient is receiving,  and increase the efficiency in the overall response to a treatment. Often, medications are used as a way to help a patient calm down, so that they are able to go through therapy which will help them on a greater level.Medications, therefore, are often paired with psychological treatments for PTSD, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy. On their own, medications and psychotherapy may be effective; but by pairing them together, their effectiveness is maximized.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Selective nature of memory has often helped us thrive; our very survival may depend upon learning the lessons from life-threatening episodes, just like it did hundredths of years ago. However, our ability to selectively remember traumatic episodes can also harm us. Seven percent of the general population suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a form of an anxiety disorder. It usually occurs after you have been through a traumatic event, or events that are life threatening or devastating, bear strong negative emotions or cause intense fear.An interesting fact is that women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD.
Virtually any trauma, defined as an event that is life-threatening or that severely effects the physical or emotional well-being of a person and causes intense fear, may cause PTSD. Such events often include either experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury. It can be divided into three main categories: 
Direct experience - such as military combat, kidnapping or a violent personal assault (sexual assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging etc.)
Witnessed situations - including the observing the serious injury or unnatural death of another person due to violent assault, or unexpectedly witnessing a dead body or body parts.
Learned events - meaning events that do not happen to you, and you do not witness, but are tragic to those around you. When you learn of a serious accident, or a serious injury experienced by a family member or close friend, even learning about the sudden death of a loved one.

Experienced any of the mentioned events? You might have PTSD if you develop the specific symptoms.
There are different levels of symptoms for traumatic disorders such as PTSD. Some basic symptoms include re-experiencing of the event, such as flashbacks or nightmares. A more serious step from this is avoidance and fear of anything that may resemble or remind them of the trauma. This also brings on lack of interest for life circumstances. Most striking  symptoms include hyperarousal, inability to sleep, and irritability all the time.



Although you might fall into some of the mentioned categories, do not be in distress as there are different levels for traumatic experiences. They include the following:

• Acute – when the duration of symptoms is shorter than 3 months.
• Chronic – when the symptoms last three months or longer.
• With Delayed Onset - between the traumatic event and the onset of the symptoms there is at least 6 month period.

Both memory and emotion relate to PTSD, as it is a highly negative and emotional experience that can cause you this disorder. It is important to face your memories, and overcome the emotions that stop you from living a normal life. This disorder also effects your memories and emotions of the future. Not only can it cause you to heavily distress your emotional state, it can also affect the formation of future memories. Research reveals the fact that people who have been exposed to extreme stress, and traumatic experiences sometimes have a smaller hippocampus, compared to people who have not been exposed to trauma. The hippocampus is a region of the brain that plays a very important role in memory. This is significant in understanding the effects of trauma in general and the impact of PTSD, specifically since the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is thought to have an important role in developing new memories about life events.

Flashbulb Memory

What is flashbulb memory?
Flashbulb memory is related to the circumstances surrounding your reception of the news1 with confidence and in vivid detail. You can think of it as a "snapshot" of the moment that was surprising, as well as significant to you.
Evidence has shown that although people are highly confident in their flashbulb memories, the details of the memories can be forgotten, and they do not significantly vary from normal memories. The proposal of the Flashbulb Memory theory by Brown and Kulik set a lot of research and studies into motion.

In three following posts, three mayor studies will be explained related to this topic.
They include:

• Brown & Kulik (1977)
• Neisser & Harsch (1992)
• Talarico & Rubin (2003)

Attack on a memory: Talarico and Rubin.

The study of Talarico and Rubin of 2003. The aim of it was to determine, whether flashbulb memory had any more detail compared to normal memories, after certain periods of time.  In this study, the participants were asked to recall the events of the Word Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. They were asked various questions on four different occasions; 1, 7, 42 and 224 days after the attack. However, this study also tested the memory of an ordinary event that happened at around the same time of the attack. They found out that the flashbulb memory remained very vivid throughout the study, as well, participants were very confident about their accuracy. However participants reported the ordinary memories becoming less and less vivid and reliable, even though objectively they could remember no more details about September 11. From this we can conclude that although we might feel that flashbulb memory is more clear, and remembered, it turns out that flashbulb memories are no different from other memories. Limitations of this study were not so many of as of the previous ones, as ordinary memory was tested, however, it is still a memory related to a powerful event. In order for this to be even more accurate, memory should be checked of an ordinary day, with no exceptional disaster or powerful attack that might remind you of it.

Race to Space: Neisser and Harsch

Neisser and Harsch also conducted an experiment when questioning the effectiveness of flashbulb memory. In 1992, they asked 106 participants to answer questions about the circumstances of their learning of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Among the questions, five asked about how they heard the news: where they were, what they were doing, who told them, what time it occurred, and so on. Thirty-two months later the participants were asked to answer the same questions again, and their results compared to the original.On the day after the disaster, 21% of the participants stated that they heard about the event on T.V. However, after thirty-two months, the percentage rose to 45%. The findings showed that memories had in fact dimmed, yet the participants were not aware, and still very confident about the accuracy of their questions. This suggests that flashbulb memory is not reliable. From this study we can see that what is different between normal memories and flashbulb memories, is most likely the confidence that people have in their memories associated with significant events.One weakness of this study is the fact that there was no control group in the experiment. This is a significant downside, as you cannot make a comparison between normal memories and flashbulb memories.

The killing of doubt: Brown & Kulik

The Brown and Kulik study of 1977, was the first modern psychological study of Flashbulb Memory. In their theory, these memories are kept through continued rehearsal in the form of discussion, or "re-living" the event. The theory was that these memories are more emotional, and therefor more vivid, last longer and more accurate. The aim of their study was then to investigate whether dramatic, or personally significant events cause flashbulb memories. The study was conducted using a questionnaire, asking 80 American participants to asses the memories of when they learned a shocking personal and social events, and how often they used to recall them. Nine of the events, for example, were assassinations of well known American personalities. The findings of this study showed that flashbulb memories were more likely to occur in unexpected and personally relevant shocking events. The assassination of J.F. Kennedy in 1963 led to the highest results, with more then 90% of the participants recalling the event in vivid detail. What we can infer from this study is that dramatic events can cause memories to form a memory of the event; which was clearly consistent with Brown and Kulik's theories. Some limitations on this study is the fact that the data was collected through questionnaires, so it would be very difficult to verify the accuracy of the memories, or responses given by the participants.

Emotion of Anger.

Emotion can sometimes be the results of our thoughts.Any event that occurs in our life, can be thought about in a negative, or a positive light. A video on Seneca, the ancient philosopher, thought that we can learn to prevent certain emotions from getting the best of us, if we are prepared. In his belief, emotions come from our cognitive evaluations of situations. He believed that the emotion of anger, is a result of a fact that we are unprepared for the little everyday annoyances that life supplies us with. We do not think pessimistic enough, or not at all about all the things that could go wrong - we are not prepared for anything but the good. When something that we do not plan occurs, we feel surprised, and as a result of that we often feel disappointed, helpless and angry. This connects to the theory of emotions of Lazarus. His theory states that a thought must be processed, before any emotion can be detected. In other words, you have to think about the situation you are in - either in a positive, negative or neutral way -  before you can experience emotion. What both of these men hint at is the fact, that your emotion rise from your thoughts on the specific emotion. And you can change your thoughts, so your emotions have to be changeable as well. Basically, the same idea has risen, in different time periods. Could it have something to it? What Seneca has been trying to do, is coach people not to give into anger, or deep negative emotions. His ideas help Lazarus' theory in many ways. He pointed out that often, people have too high of expectations that can are almost never met. And I agree. One way to learn how to be "more happy" and calm down is to not to always expect the best. This sounds a little demotivating, but when things turn out be better then you thought - you are happy, and suddenly the whole day is pleasant. " If you cannot change it - ACCEPT IT and don't stress."

You cannot learn facial expressions.

Have you ever wondered if facial expression is learned from observation of other people, or if it is something  out of our control? For a long time people have thought that we learn how to express our emotions facially, from observing how people around us act in different situations. However, according to a study done in 2008, facial expressions of emotion are given by our genes. 

This study is the first in it's area to demonstrate that blind individuals, use the same facial expressions as those who can see, and produce the same facial muscle movements in response to specific emotional stimuli. It provides a new insight on how people manage emotional displays, and suggests  that the ability to regulate emotional expressions is not learned through observation. In this study, a psychology Professor David Matsumoto compared the facial expressions of sighted and blind judo athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games.His findings reveal that hat sighted and blind individuals manage their expressions of emotion in the same way according to social context. In his study he noticed that 85 percent of silver medalists who lost their medal matches produced "social smiles" during the ceremonies. Social smiles, are forced smiles that use only the mouth muscles,to cover up their true emotion with "happiness". True smiles,  cause the eyes to twinkle and narrow and the cheeks to rise. The losers tended to push their lower lip up as if to control the emotion on their face, an therefore produced social smiles. Participants of the study that were blind from birth, would never have the chance to earn to control their emotions in this way - through visual learning. Therefore there must be another mechanism that causes it. It is possible that  our emotions, and the systems to regulate them, are "leftovers" of our evolutionary ancestry

"The statistical correlation between the facial expressions of sighted and blind individuals was almost perfect," Matsumoto said. "This suggests something genetically resident within us is the source of facial expressions of emotion."

I choose this article because all of the other ones submitted were either repeating each other and what I already shared on my blog, or did not have enough interesting facts behind it to interest me. This specific article,  - "Facial Expressions Of Emotion Are Innate, Not Learned" by Science Daily  - relates to our class discussions since it supports that emotions and how we express them are given to us by nature. Humans can connect to each other through emotions, as their vast range is what in fact makes us different from those who came before us. If both blind and sighted people react similarly with their emotions and their expression, then there is much more for us to learn and discover in the field of Psychology.

Culture of Emotions

As we study emotions, we notice that the same emotions are experienced by all human beings; however the events that evoke them or the reactions they cause differ as we cross the cultural and gender lines. Culture and gender, likewise, play a role in the emotions we feel, how they are evoked, or how we express them. Although emotion recognition was thought of as largely universal, we have noticed differences between the way males and females display emotions. Usually, people of both genders feel the same types of emotions and the same intensity in during the same events, but it is the way we express them that differs across the gender line of one culture, and this causes a lot of stereotypes. It is not that women do not feel the same range of anger as men, but they are thought to not express such emotion. When angry, for example, women are then more likely to cry then to show any other more aggressive behavior. In the March 2000 issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly, studies are explained that work as evidence for this gender bias in emotions. The studies identified gender stereotypes of emotions, and the relationship between gender stereotypes and the interpretation of emotionally expressive behavior. Participants of these studies believed women experienced and expressed majority of the emotions studied - such as sadness, fear, sympathy - more often than men. Exceptions included anger and pride, which were thought to be experienced and expressed more often by men. In another study discussed in the issue, participants interpreted photographs of adults’ uncertain anger/sadness facial expressions in a stereotype-consistent manner. The results found that women were rated as sadder and less angry than men. Even definite anger expressed by women was rated as a mixture of anger and sadness. The discussion of these studies focused on the role of gender stereotypes in adults ’interpretations of emotional expressions, and the implications to social relations. Gender bias plays a huge role in the difference of emotion in genders. The two examples above, show two of the important roles and display rules that we feel we need to follow. The first example shows us that even though we feel the same emotions and at the same rate, we are often labeled differently on how often we feel a specific emotion compared to the opposite gender. On the other hand, when presented with an emotion that could be described as anger or sadness, women are stuck and labeled as sad, while men are labeled as angry. (Plant, Hyde, Keltener and Devine)                                                    

Emotional differences occur not only between males and females, but between different cultures and ethnic backgrounds as well. In order to explore how differences across cultures may affect the universal processes involved in expressing and understanding emotions, in 1972 Ekman conducted his  five-culture study. Participants viewed photographs expressing emotions, and for each they selected an emotion that they thought was the correct answer - from six possible choices. Although this study is not the strongest evidence, as guessing entirely at random would yield one correct answer out of six, it provides us with plenty of support and new ideas that started out the current research on this topic. We could notice an interesting fact from this experiment, the group with the highest performance is also the same group from which the experimental stimuli originated. All participants  in the study viewed photographs of American facial expressions, therefore  Americans were the only participants of the study to view members of their own cultural group (in-group). Everyone else in the study judged expressions from a foreign group (out-group). It was interesting that the South American participants were only slightly less accurate than U.S. participants, whereas the difference in performance was larger for the Japanese, who were the most culturally distant. Therefore, the in-group advantage is lower when groups are nearer geographically or have greater cross-cultural contact with each other,. The implication that comes from this is that over time, participants appear to learn how to understand the emotions of people from foreign cultures, the more they interact with them.   

Another example is a research conducted recently, which is holds a better argument for culture diversity in emotions. A study published in the April 2007 issue of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is a result from a collaborative study between Masaki Yuki (Hokkaido University), William Maddux (INSEAD) and Takahiko Masuda (University of Alberta). This study reveals that in cultures where it is normal to have your emotions under strict control, such as Japan, focus is placed on the eyes to interpret emotions. On the other hand, in cultures where emotion is openly expressed, such as the United States, the focus is on the mouth to interpret emotion. Across two studies, computerized icons and human images were used to compare how Japanese and American cultures interpreted images, which conveyed a range of emotions. Findings go against the popular theory that the facial expressions of basic emotions can be universally recognized. Culture plays a very strong role in determining how people perceive emotions, and this fact needs to be considered when interpreting facial expression.

A very interesting point brought up by the study is present below:

"These cultural differences are even noticeable in computer emoticons, which are used to convey a writer's emotions over email and text messaging. Consistent with the research findings, the Japanese emoticons for happiness and sadness vary in terms of how the eyes are depicted, while American emoticons vary with the direction of the mouth. In the United States the emoticons : ) and : - ) denote a happy face, whereas the emoticons :( or : - ( denote a sad face. However, Japanese tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a happy face, and (;_;) to indicate a sad face."

The Gift of Fear

Emotion is a state of feeling which involves thoughts, physiological changes, and a behavior or an outward expression. Emotion is usually associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition or motivation.

It is an individual's state of mind that involves environmental and biochemical (internal and external) influences. Emotion comes in many forms and ranges, and has many reasons associated with it. But could emotion be an adaptive feature for survival? Theories of emotion, based on evolution are that of survival. 

As animals we once lived in the wild, and along with monkeys and tigers, we needed something of an advantage to react quicker and better to dangerous situations. We needed emotions in order to react quickly to dangerous stimuli. For example, if  faced with a tiger, it was better to be rocked with a fear strong enough, that it would trigger a rush of blood and adrenaline, opposed to just sitting around and thinking about the threat. Emotion helped us become quick in actions that could have saved our lives. We developed an emotional system because it could induce quick responses to danger.

But now you can ask, how would emotions allow humans to survive and be successful in the world? Aggression and the desire to survive,  helped animals rise to the top of  the food chain. In order to create a system that works hard to survive, there is a need to make it conscious and emotional, then it will want to keep itself around. Human beings, being  the most self-conscious animals, are invested and crafty in the need for survival. We developed basic emotions, such as fear, anger and happiness, like the other animals, but we also developed a more complex rational system too, in which we could  imagine our own past, and future selves. It was the ability to reason about the old, as well as our future selves, that helped us set traps, and not just run from predators, and allowed us to dominate the food chain. Emotions evidently evolved to motivate social behaviors that helped us adapt in the ancestral environment, but they helped us even in more modern times. For example, the emotion of spite works against the individual, but also helps establish an individual's reputation as someone to be feared. Shame and pride can motivate behaviors that help maintain a person's standing in a community, and self-esteem can be an estimate of a person's status.

Alzheimer's Diesese: The Forgetting

Alzheimer's disease is a serious brain disease; which has symptoms that relate to memory impairment.  The onset of symptoms is gradual, but its progression is continuous and irreversible. Disruptions of episodic memory are the earliest symptoms of the disease, which greatly worsen over time. Main symptoms of the disease also include problems with focusing attention, altered personality, difficulty speaking and understanding language or impaired movement. Drugs may slow down the process of Alzheimer’s disease, but there is no cure. The disease inevitably leads to death.

Alzheimer’s disease develops in series of stages, and first the medial temporal lobes in your brain are affected, in particular, the hippocampus. The medial temporal lobe holds the main parts of your episodic memory, and it is the first area of the brain to show pathological changes. The hippocampus is involved in the formation of new memories. First stages of the disease,  can seem to be a normal part of aging, but they are not. After working its way through the temporal lobes, the disease stretches out to the parietal lobes, and other brain regions. On scientifical terms, the brain suffers damage and dies off because amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles start to form. The person that is diagnosed with this assured death sentence can see changes in themselves only in the early stages. In the end, it is the family and friends of the patient that have to live with their loved one loosing themselves before their eyes.

In the video: The Forgetting, lives of people living with the disease, and their loved ones, were played out in front of our eyes. This made the disease more then just a health problem that will never effect us. It showed families, that were given this tragic life sentence. In the video, we met a family that had Alzheimer's running in their "genes". The fear that they had to live with, losing themselves and not knowing who they are anymore, makes a memorable impact on anyone. Family members of Alzheimer's patients were given the hardest roles to bear. "I'm not dieing" said one of the patients to her sister, "I'm disappearing before your eyes." Family members recalled that their loved ones could not remember what was spoken to them, they would do the same things over and over again, and often would turn aggressive and be very frustrated that they could not do anything but let this horrible disease take over. patients feel like they do not have any thoughts in their head.The disease literally robs you of who you are, and the little time that remains the family wants to spend cherishing the part of the "old you" that is still left. In the end, this disease provides you with the longest and saddest form of a goodbye.