Mental Disorders as Causal Systems: A Network Approach to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Debates about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often turn on whether it is a timeless, cross-culturally valid natural phenomenon or a socially constructed idiom of distress. Most clinicians seem to favor the first view, differing only in whether they conceptualize PTSD as a discrete category or the upper end of a dimension of stress responsiveness. Yet both categorical and dimensional construals presuppose that PTSD symptoms are fallible indicators reflective of an underlying, latent variable.

Challenges in treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder

Background: Research shows that trauma-focused therapy and multimodal interventions are the two most
often used strategies in treatment of refugees suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While
preliminary evidence suggests that trauma-focused approaches may have some efficacy, this could not be
established for multimodal interventions. However, it may be that multimodal interventions have been studied
in more treatment-resistant refugees with very high levels of psychopathology, disability, and chronicity. In the

EMDR With Traumatized Refugees: From Experience-Based to Evidence-Based Practice

Many refugees resettled in Western countries suffer from an accumulation of traumatic and current stressors that contribute to mental health problems and may complicate trauma-focused treatment. Consequently, the acceptability, safety, and efficacy of trauma-focused treatment with refugees have been a matter of clinical and scientific interest. In recent years, the evidence has accumulated for narrative exposure therapy and culturally adapted cognitive behavioral therapy.

Developmental perspective on trauma

This book presents a new model on trauma. A new factor in this book is the impact of the child developmental stage itself on the perception of traumatic events. This concerns the way trauma influences the performance of the developmental tasks, a formative developmental perspective. A frame of...

Memory traces of trauma: Neurocognitive aspects of and therapeutic approaches for posttraumatic stress disorder

In the Netherlands, 81% of the general population experiences at least one potentially traumatic event in their life, such as a traffic accident, assault, rape, or disaster. Around 7% of people fulfill the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder at some point during their life. Certain details of the traumatic experience, such as the rifle of a gun, are remembered extensively by these...

Therapygenetics: the 5HTTLPR as a biomarker for response to psychological therapy?

Psychiatric illnesses are under polygenic influence and are associated with interactions between genetic variants and environmental exposures.1 Gene–environment interactions might not only predict onset of disease, but genetic biomarkers might also help the clinician to select the optimal treatment for patients.2 However, there is a lack of studies on therapygenetics for psychological treatment of psychiatric diseases.

Sleeping Worries Away or Worrying Away Sleep? Physiological Evidence on Sleep-Emotion Interactions

Recent findings suggest that sleep might serve a role in emotional coping. However, most findings are based on subjective reports of sleep quality, while the relation with underlying sleep physiology is still largely unknown. In this study, the impact of an emotionally distressing experience on the EEG correlates of sleep was assessed. In addition, the association between sleep physiological parameters and the extent of emotional attenuation over sleep was determined.

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