There is a growing body of literature on the risk for secondary trauma amongst professional trauma workers. Nonetheless, there is scant published literature on the impact of trauma work on volunteers; particularly when such volunteers are indigenous to the highly traumatized communities which they serve. The study examined a group of parents (N=16) who volunteered in a school-based trauma support project in an impoverished, gang-ridden South African urban community in which they themselves reside. Aims were to 1) Explore the psychological impact of indigenous trauma volunteerism; 2) Explore volunteers’ perceptions of costs and benefits of volunteerism. Data collection was chiefly qualitative, using focus group and individual interviews. The Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Subscales (Stamm, 2002) were administered in order to determine risk for burnout, risk for compassion fatigue and potential for compassion satisfaction. The Stressful Life Experiences Screening Short Form (Stamm, 1997) was administered in order to gather descriptive information regarding personal trauma histories. Project documentation was reviewed. Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data involved a combination of both etic (theory-based) and emic (data and context-based) techniques. The volunteers’ experiences were co-constructed in interaction with three settings: 1) Experiences of training and supervision were affirming and empowering; 2) Experiences of the school context were mediated by the degree of access and integration into the school environment; 3) Experiences of the community context were mediated by the dynamics of identification, role fluidity and inter-setting negotiation. The primary cost of involvement was distress relating to limitations on capacity to help fellow community members with whom they strongly identified, and whom they felt intrapsychically, interpersonally and socially pressured to assist. These limitations included limited client resources, limited personal resources, limited occupational resources and limited systemic resources. Other sources of distress included context-related boundary management difficulties, institutional (school-related) stressors, difficulties in persuading children to disclose abuse and material costs of volunteering. Coping was facilitated by empowering training, supervision, peer support, and self-care practices. Benefits included acquisition of psychological, interpersonal and occupational skills, improved personal relationships, social support, validation, personal healing and role satisfaction.

This study assessed the extent to which exposure to traumatic events affected the traumatic stress response of male and female police officers. A convenience sample of male and female police officers (N = 66: n Male=46, n Female=20) was surveyed at an Eastern Cape police station. The following instruments were used: 1) Biographical questionnaire 2) PTSS-10 scales 3) The 39-item stress incident scale. Findings of this study indicate that the frequency of exposure to stressful incidents especially for more serious events is significant higher than that of Peltzer (2001) study. The four most frequent stressful incidents experienced by all participants were 1) Finding a corpse after murder (86.4 percent), 2) Responding to a scene involving accidental injury of a child (84.8 percent), .3) Finding a corpse (died of natural causes) (84.8 percent), 4) Duty related violence (non-shooting) (84.8 percent ).The four least frequent incidents experienced by participants were: (1) Response to the depressing social situation (71.2 percent), (2) Dragging of a corpse (74.2 percent), (3) Taking a life in the line of duty (75.8 percent), (4) Violent death of a colleague (77.3 percent ).Female participants results indicated a positive relationship between frequency of stressful incidents and total threat, anxiety, helplessness and PTSS-scale , where male participants’ results indicate no significant relationship between frequency of stressful incidents and total threat, anxiety, helplessness and PTSS-scale. Findings on male participants however indicate a positive relationship between years of service in police, age of police officers and PTSS-scale, while female participants’ results indicated no relationship between years of service in the police, age of police officer and PTSS-scale.

The subject of recollection of traumatic collective memories resulting from a single, unexpected event is still a new phenomenon in the trauma-related literature, especially in the context of exiled political refugees. The focus of this research is to explore the nexus between Chilean exiles' personal meanings of Pinochet's unexpected arrest and release in England, and the construction of group memories of traumatic life experiences triggered by these events. To access the individual and collective meaning experiences of the members of this community, this study used narrative inquiry. The participants created individual narratives of these events, and they shared them in a group format. Through sharing these experiences in a group setting, the participants created a "cultural group narrative." This embodied their individual and collective experiences, their lived experiences of exile, their adaptation to a new culture and their re-experiencing of traumatic memories and life events when hearing the news of Pinochet. Because the researcher is also Chilean and because Latin American culture is collective in nature, she played a dual role as both investigator and participant. This study has several implications for counselling practice, education and supervision. It provides further knowledge and understanding of the historical, political and cultural issues related to traumatic experiences in both individuals and groups, as well as further understanding of the events or situations that trigger the re-appearance of traumatic memories. The results of this research also provide important information for therapists working in the areas of cross-cultural counselling and the development and improvement of therapeutic approaches for dealing with traumatic memories among political refugees and immigrant populations. In a broader context, this study enhances the understanding of similar processes in other ethnic communities. Finally, this study contributes to the documentation of the collective trauma processes of the Chilean community in Vancouver, Canada. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Police officers are subject to stressors from traumatic incidents, day to day policing duties as well as organizational sources. This quantitative study examined 195 serving police officers in the Vancouver Police Department to determine what if any relationship existed between any prevalence of traumatic symptoms and their years of experience as police officers. Trauma symptoms were measured through the use of the Trauma Symptom Inventory, which was administered to a randomly selected sample. The sample was divided into seven groups based on years of completed service; recruits, 0<2 years, 2<5 years, 5<10 years, 10<15 years, 15<20 years and 20+ years. While the recruit group showed a spike on the validity scale of Response Level and there were spikes in Anger/Irritability and Depression among the 2<5 years and 20+ groups respectively, most of the significant scores were among the group 10<15 years. This group showed significantly elevated scores in Atypical Responses, Anxious Arousal, Anger/Irritability, Depression, Intrusive Experience, Defensive Avoidance and Impaired Self Reference. In terms of support the respondents indicated through a demographic questionnaire that Family Support was the one most frequently endorsed at the high level, followed by Social Support and then by Peer Support. There was also low levels of endorsement of the Critical Item on the TSI that had to do with hurting others and problems due to alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour. Empirical support and personal experiences of the researcher are provided as explanations for the trends. The number of females in the latter groups was limited due to the demographics of the population. Several recommendations are made for future research as well as recommendations to the Vancouver Police Department to address the findings with their sworn members. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

My interest in the process and effects of the witnessing act guides the purpose of this study. Here, I initiate a deeper understanding of the vicarious witnessing experience from the perspective of the witnessing participant. My central question is: How do individuals make sense of vicariously witnessing trauma through narrative, visual, and evidence-based representations of traumatic events in the concentration camps of Europe? Vicarious witnessing begins with abstract representations of the event. The evidence is witnessed firsthand, but the event itself is represented through various perspectives such as photographic or artistic images, survivor stories, or physical remnants. Witnessing the evidence evokes a potent embodied experience, so that a person can make the statement, "I have imagined what another has experienced, hence I believe I know." It is through the imagination that a witness forms a picture of the trauma. Undoubtedly, there is immense power in meeting another's experience in the realm of imagination. Compassionate action and social justice is based in this area of human empathy. To best achieve my purpose, I use a narrative method that involves two types of analysis, interpretive readings and narrative instances, as an approach to understand the participant's experience of vicarious witnessing. Participants in this study construct three types of narrative texts-written, spoken, and visual. Each textual perspective shapes the meaning that the participant attempts to express. As a first level of analysis, interpretive readings of the texts include general, specific, visual, and relational readings. Secondly, through exploring the interaction between various parts of these texts, and between the texts themselves, I explore three types of narrative instances--single-text, intratextual, and intertextual. Each analysis of a narrative instance is matched specifically to each participant, and I believe, is uniquely adequate for understanding the experience of vicarious witnessing. My inquiry outlines how individuals make sense of vicariously witnessing trauma, clarifies the meaning that participants make of the vicarious witnessing experience, shows the risks and coping involved in vicarious witnessing, and presents the kinds of social action that vicarious witnessing evokes. In the field of counselling psychology, the witnessing experience is an important aspect of trauma theory that has been left unexplored by psychologists. My research enlarges the social and theoretical conversation concerning the vicarious witnessing experience. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

children

Orientador: Fabio Akcelrud Durão / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T07:22:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Curi_FabianoAndrade_D.pdf: 17480636 bytes, checksum: df3fbbe639917efacc3b30f816ed320e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como finalidade observar as possibilidades de representação autobiográfica nas narrativas das histórias em quadrinhos, mais especificamente de lembranças traumáticas. Nos últimos anos, foram vários os novos títulos tendo como tema as experiências de vida de seus autores que se utilizaram de diversas estruturas e técnicas para refletirem sobre as lembranças de episódios que vivenciaram. A proliferação dessas obras levanta a questão sobre a criação de espaços autobiográficos nas histórias em quadrinhos. Espaços autobiográficos que alimentam a discussão entre os limites do real e do ficcional, do concreto e do abstrato e da relação entre autor e leitor. Diferentemente do texto literário ou da imagem fílmica, muito comuns nos relatos de si, as narrativas em quadrinhos trabalham com o equilíbrio entre texto e ilustrações compondo uma forma singular para lidar com essas histórias, ainda que tenham limitações semelhantes às outras, pois estas são características da memória e não da narrativa. Para levantar as virtudes e problemas dessas histórias, há na pesquisa uma leitura mais aprofundada das obras Cicatrizes, de David Small, Retalhos, de Craig Thompson, e Fun Home, de Alison Bechdel, que auxilia no entendimento da argumentação teórica sobre memória, autobiografia e trauma nas histórias em quadrinhos. / Abstract: This work aims to observe the possibilities of representation in autobiographical narratives of comics, specially the traumatic memories. In recent years, a great number of new titles having as theme the life experiences of the authors who used various structures and techniques to reflect on the memories of episodes they experienced. The proliferation of these works raises the question about creating autobiographical spaces in comics. Autobiographical spaces that nurture the discussion about the boundaries of the real and the fictional, the concrete and the abstract, and the relationship between author and reader. Unlike the literary text or film image, very common in other reports of the self, narratives comic work with the balance between text and illustrations composing a unique way to deal with these stories, even if they have similar limitations like the others, because these are characteristics memory and not the narrative. To raise the virtues and problems of these stories, there is in this research a close reading of the works Stiches, from David Small, Blankets, from Craig Thompson, and Fun Home, from Alison Bechdel , which helps in understanding the theoretical argument about memory, autobiography and trauma in the comics. / Doutorado / Teoria e Critica Literaria / Doutor em Teoria e História Literária

The importance of individual differences in psychological responses to loss and potential trauma is well-established, yet previous approaches have been limited in capturing and explaining the full scope of variation. The present studies expanded on this line of research to elucidate key aspects of the risk and protective processes that influence psychological adaptation to loss and trauma. The first set of studies examined the influence of emotion regulation choice sensitivity on the relationship between potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans and nonveterans. In the veteran sample, choice sensitivity was found to be a moderator that reduced the impact of PTE exposure on PTSD symptoms. Choice sensitivity similarly functioned as a moderator in the nonveteran sample, however the effects were contingent on both the type of PTE exposure and the outcomes associated with implementation of the selected regulation strategies. The second set of studies investigated risk and protective factors in the face of spousal loss. Random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling was employed to examine and clarify the nature of the relationships between key factors and depression across an 8-year period. Factors included optimism, sense of control, religiosity, and social support while the primary bereavement outcome was depression symptoms. Distinct patterns of risk and protective processes were identified in relation to all factors that involved clearly differentiable stable, between-subjects effects and time-varying, within-subjects effects. The third set of studies addressed whether resilience would extend across multiple domains of positive adjustment in the context of spinal cord injury, bereavement, and heart attack. Relationships between symptom-based trajectories of resilience and positive adjustment in psychological, social, and health-related domains were examined. Individuals who exhibited trajectories of resilience in relation to depression symptoms simultaneously experienced better positive adjustment, functioning, and health in areas that included quality of life, perceived manageability, anxiety, self-esteem, social integration, cognition, and body mass index.

The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive complexity, extremity, and the relationship between social repertory grids and life events repertory grids (LERG) in people who report a history of trauma. Effects of type of trauma on complexity and extremity scores of each type of grid were examined. Prior research into repertory grids and trauma has used only one type of grid, predominantly social grids or LERGs. Therefore, a natural, progressive step in the grid research involved investigating how individuals integrate social and life event constructs. It was hypothesized, and results show, that there is a positive correlation between complexity scores and extremity scores of social grids and LERGs. However it was not found that there was a negative correlation between trauma history and complexity scores, and that trauma acts as a moderator for cognitive complexity. Instead, it appears that the social facet of experience is key to understanding perception of traumatic experiences. Additionally, number of traumas experienced might affect social construct elaboration.

The present study sought to build on the large body of past research into written disclosure of traumatic memories. This research has consistently found that participants who write about their traumatic experiences realize long-term physiological and psychological health benefits. More recently, it has been found that those participants who realize the most benefits are those who progressively include more elements of a good narrative, or story, in their writing about a traumatic experience over several sessions. Therefore, research has begun to examine the role of language and the structure of language in the health benefits gained from written disclosure of traumatic memories. A guided written disclosure protocol was designed for the present study, which sought to aid participants in supplying an increasing amount of narrative structure to their written disclosures of a single traumatic experience. Participants (N = 30) completed several measures of psychological and physiological health prior to and one month after completing the guided written disclosure protocol. Analyses revealed that participants who completed all four writing sessions showed statistically significant reductions in symptoms of general psychological distress, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and intrusive and avoidant symptoms related to the traumatic experience. No significant self-reported physiological health benefits were found. The clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.