Research has shown that a self-compassion meditation exercise in healthy individuals reduced negative affect, negative cognitions about the self and sympathetic arousal and also enhanced positive emotions and parasympathetic activity (Kirschner, Karl, & Kuyken, 2013). Beneficial effects of self-compassion, i.e., being kind and considerate to one’s self with the acknowledgement that pain cannot always be fixed or solved (Neff, 2003; Gilbert, 2009), for mental health and well-being have been previously demonstrated. This research tested the hypothesis that meditation can also be beneficial for individuals who survived psychological trauma and have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a disorder characterised by elevated physiological arousal and negative post-traumatic cognitions about the self. This study used self-report and physiological measures such as Heart-Rate (HR), Heart-Rate Variability (HRV), and Skin Conductance Level (SCL) in a trauma-exposed sample (N =56) with and without PTSD. It was revealed that both groups show significant meditation-induced reductions in state self-criticism and sympathetic arousal (HR, SCL). However, the study only found the expected pattern of significantly elevated state self-compassion and parasympathetic activation (HRV) induced by a self-compassion meditation in the non-PTSD group. This suggests that, interpreting these findings within Gilbert’s three affect regulatory systems, a single self-compassion meditation was sufficient to reduce threat in all trauma survivors and to activate the safety system in the non-PTSD group but not to initiate safety and connectedness in PTSD patients.

This study expanded the current literature by assessing PTSD in relation to reactivity and recovery from negative emotional arousal among OEF/OIF/OND Veterans. Cardiac impedance was employed during a speech task and a trauma imagery procedure. Those in the PTSD-S group displayed lower SBP and higher TPR reactivity relative to the PTSD- and PTSD+ groups; lower CO reactivity relative to the PTSD+ group; and more CO recovery than those in the PTSD+ group to the trauma task. For speech task, Veterans in the PTSD-S group exhibited lower HR reactivity for both speech preparation and delivery than those in the PTSD- group. Depression was not a significant mediator in the relation between PTSD and reactivity. However, further analyses revealed that it served as a moderator between PTSD and reactivity during speech preparation (SBP, HR, and PEP reactivity), and speech delivery (HR, PEP, and CO reactivity). Simple slopes analysis revealed that depression was positively associated with HR and SBP (speech preparation) and HR (speech delivery) for those in the PTSD-S group. For those in the PTSD- group, depression was positively associated with PEP during the speech task (to include preparation) and negatively associated with SBP and CO (speech preparation) and HR and CO (speech delivery). For those in the PTSD+ group, depression was negatively associated with CO and positively associated with PEP. For the most part, Veterans in the PTSD-S group exhibited lower reactivity to both tasks than Veterans in the PTSD+ group or combat-exposed controls without PTSD. In light of the emerging evidence relating blunted reactivity to unhealthy behaviors and negative health outcomes (e.g., depression, obesity), it would appear that both extremes, exaggerated and diminished reactivity are maladaptive responses to stress and that the most optimally response to stress is a moderate reaction.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five focuses on Billy Pilgrim’s travels through time and his experiences during World War II. More than that, it is a story about the journey of a clearly troubled protagonist whose mental state, best described as broken, is never fully explored in the novel. The aim of this essay is to bring light to the intricacies of Billy’s curious mental state, and to explore the theory that the alien encounters as well as the time travelling that he experiences are the result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that Billy suffers from. This is done by analyzing Billy’s experiences with time travel, emotional numbing, and Tralfamadorians and connecting it to known symptoms and causes of PTSD. The results show that Billy does indeed showcase strong signs of PTSD, which were most likely caused by a combination of childhood experiences and trauma during the war. This PTSD manifests itself through Billy’s time travelling and alien encounters, which are used as a coping mechanism. / Kurt Vonneguts Slakthus 5 fokuserar på Billy Pilgrims resor genom tiden och hans upplevelser under andra världskriget. Ännu mer än det så är det en berättelse om resan av en helt klart besvärad huvudperson vars mentala tillstånd, som bäst kan beskrivas som brutet, aldrig riktigt förklaras i romanen. Syftet med denna uppsats är att skapa en klarhet till förvecklingarna av Billys besynnerliga mentala tillstånd, och att undersöka teorin att utomjordingarna såväl som resorna genom tiden som han upplever är resultat av posttraumatisk stressyndrom som Billy lider av. Detta utförs genom att analysera Billys upplevelser av tidsresor, emotionellt bedövande och Tralfamadorer och ansluta dem till symtomer och orsaker till PTSD. Resultaten visar att Billy visar tydliga tecken på PTSD, som troligen orsakades av en kombination av barndomsupplevelser och trauma under sin tid som soldat. Denna PTSD manifisterar sig genom Billys tidsresor och möten med utomjordingar, som används som en coping mekanism.

The news has become a central part of daily culture in the United States and provides up to date information regarding a vast array of topics from weather to war. A specific aspect of the news, emergency 911 tapes, and their influence on viewers' physiological and psychological health was investigated. Research regarding the relationship between physiological arousal and exposure to brief traumatic stimuli, as well as research addressing the development of pathological psychiatric symptoms are discussed in the literature review. This study examined the relationship between exposure to 911 emergency tapes, physiological arousal, and symptoms of psychopathology while considering the influence of trait personality characteristics and state mood. Results identified significant differences in physiological response to the 911 emergency condition compared to news reports. No significant differences were identified between mood state and arousal except in the instance of respiration rate and negative mood; those with higher scores on negative mood displayed higher levels of respiration. Personality factors and empathy were examined for their predictive value on level of arousal, and yielded insignificant results. Finally, baseline level of PTSD was not significantly correlated with arousal in the 911 condition, except in terms of respiration rate. Future research is required to better understand the arousal as a result of exposure to such media, and the associated psychological and physiological health implications.

The purpose of this study is to provide an inclusive portrait of the experience of female spouses living with traumatized male Canadian soldiers healing from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). By facilitating the articulation of the spouses' stories this research gives a voice to and fosters appreciation for this neglected population. As well, this study helps clarify the needs and possible therapeutic interventions for spouses of soldiers in psychotherapy for PTSD. Although recently there has been an increased focus on addressing PTSD in soldiers, there has been comparatively little research and clinical attention given to the soldiers' families. For this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with six spouses of former peacekeeping Canadian soldiers who received group therapy for PTSD. Using the Life Story interview method, a spontaneous picture of the spouses' experiences was elicited as part of a comprehensive relationship narrative. This provided the opportunity for understanding the experience of living with a soldier in treatment for PTSD within a couple relationship and larger social context. Narrative summaries were created from the interviews and follow-up was conducted with each participant to gain feedback on these narratives. Participants were also given the opportunity to read each other's narratives and discuss their impressions. The narrative summaries are presented along with thematic results. The participants' stories revealed instances of aggression, primary trauma and problems related to their husbands' periods of alcohol abuse, so Figley's model of Secondary Traumatic Stress was not the best conceptual fit to explain the experiences of these women. Limited support was found, however, for Hobfoll's (1998)model of a loss spiral to help describe the descent into chronic disability associated with combat-related PTSD as well as the difficulties soldiers experience in their transition from military service. This study's implications for practice include recommendations for groups for military spouses; the need to address the iatrogenic suffering of soldiers and their spouses; treatment recommendations for soldiers with PTSD. Future research also needs to include delivery and evaluation of a group-based counselling intervention for the spouses of traumatized soldiers. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Many of the symptoms characteristic of PTSD such as hypervigiliance towards threat, involve attentional processes. The first part of this thesis explored the role of attentional processes in the maintenance and treatment of PTSD. Although general models of anxiety give attentional processes central prominence cognitive models of PTSD (e.g., Foa & Riggs, 1993; Brewin, Dalgleish, & Joseph, 1996; Ehlers & Clark, 2000) assign an important role to trauma memory and place little or no emphasis on the role of attentional processes in maintaining symptoms. Models of anxiety have suggested that attentional bias is automatic (Mathews & Macleod, 2002) or strategic (Wells & Mathews, 1994). Wells' (2000) Metacognitive Model of PTSD is one of the few models to emphasis thinking style and attention rather then memory. In this model attentional bias is thought to be strategic in nature. The evidence reviewed supports a role of attention in PTSD and suggests it may be beneficial to modify this process. Two different attention techniques based on models of bias are reviewed.The second part of the thesis described a randomized controlled evaluation of attentional training technique (ATT; Wells, 1990) on traumatic stress symptoms in a sample of 60 university students, who had previously experienced a stressful life event. ATT is a technique used in metacognitive therapy to modify the control of attention. Participants were randomly assigned to either an ATT group (n = 29) or a control group (n = 31). An emotional attention set shifting task was included as an objective measure of attention. The results supported the hypotheses, ATT reduced intrusions and negative affect, increased self-report attention flexibility and modified performance on the attention set shifting task. The results are consistent with the metacognitive model of PTSD. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed and the results add to studies suggesting positive effects of the technique across a range of disorders.The third part critically reflected on methodological and ethical issues from the above research study. The interpretation of the findings is limited by the student population. It is acknowledged that the results are preliminary in nature but it is believed that the study provides useful insights into the role of attentional processes in the development and treatment of traumatic stress symptoms and provides a basis for studies in the future.

Considerable research has demonstrated a link between thoughts of revenge, or vengeful rumination, and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, particularly in situations involving interpersonal trauma. Personality factors have been related to both vengefulness and PTSD. No study to date has simultaneously examined the unique contributions of vengefulness and personality factors in the development of PTSD symptoms. Therefore, the present study addressed these questions in an inpatient sample by comparing contributions of the Big Five personality factors and vengeful rumination to the development of PTSD symptoms through correlation, hierarchical regression, and omnibus regression analyses. Results showed that Neuroticism predicted PTSD symptoms better than other personality factors, that Neuroticism and Agreeableness predicted vengeful rumination in opposite directions, and that personality factors and vengeful rumination each added unique variance in the prediction of PTSD symptoms. Future directions and implications are discussed.

Previous research on the symptoms of Moral Injury suggests that it commonly results in clinical impairment (Drescher et al., 2011). Recent models have suggested that Acceptance and Meaning-Making may moderate the relationship between Moral Injury and Posttraumatic Growth (Blackie et al., 2016). However, Meaning-Making and Acceptance have yet to be examined in a population with Moral Injury. Data were collected from 120 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) online marketplace. Participation was restricted to U.S. military and veterans who have experienced a traumatic event. Participants completed a demographics questionnaire (Seidler, 2016), the Posttraumatic Checklist (PCL; Weathers et al., 2013), the Moral Injury Questionnaire-Military Version (MIQ-M; Currier, Holland, Drescher, & Foy, 2013), the Integration of Stressful Live Events Scale (ISLES; Holland, Currier, Coleman, & Neimeyer, 2010), the Acceptance Subscale of the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI; Rolffs, Rogge, & Wilson, 2016), and The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995). This study tested the following research hypotheses: 1) Scores for Meaning-Making and Acceptance will significantly and positively predict scores for Posttraumatic Growth in a sample population with PTSD; 2) Scores for Meaning-Making and Acceptance will moderate the relationship between measures of Moral Injury and Posttraumatic Growth, with higher scores of Meaning-Making and Acceptance resulting in higher scores of Posttraumatic Growth and lower scores of Meaning-Making and Acceptance resulting in lower scores of Posttraumatic Growth; 3) Three distinct groups of people can be high and low scores for Moral Injury and symptoms of PTSD. In contrast to the hypothesis, both Acceptance of negative emotions and Meaning-Making demonstrated direct effects but did not moderate the relation between Moral Injury and Posttraumatic Growth. Acceptance also appears to partially mediate the relationship between Moral Injury and PTG. The results of the cluster analysis identified three groups of participants based primarily on scores for Moral Injury, namely those with high, low and moderate scores. Participants with high Moral Injury scores had high scores for PTSD symptoms. The other two groups had moderate PTSD symptom scores. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

abstract: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterized by intrusive memories from a traumatic event. Current therapies rarely lead to complete remission. PTSD can be modeled in rodents using chronic stress (creating vulnerable phenotype) combined with fear conditioning (modeling a traumatic experience), resulting in attenuated extinction learning and impaired recall of extinction. Studies typically investigate cognition soon after chronic stress ends; however, as days and weeks pass (“rest” period) some cognitive functions may improve compared to soon after stress. Whether a rest period between chronic stress and fear conditioning/extinction would lead to improvements is unclear. In Chapter 2, male rats were chronically stressed by restraint (6hr/d/21d), a reliable method to produce cognitive changes, or assigned to a non-stressed control group (CON). After chronic stress ended, fear conditioning occurred within a day (STR-IMM), or after three (STR-R3) or six weeks (STR-R6). During the first three extinction trials, differences emerged in fear to the non-shock context: STR-R3/R6 showed significantly less fear to the context than did STR-IMM or CON. Differences were unlikely attributable to generalization or to second-order conditioning. Therefore, a rest period following chronic stress may lead to improved fear extinction and discrimination between the conditioned stimulus and environment. In Chapter 3, the infralimbic cortex (IL) was investigated due to the IL’s importance in fear extinction. Rats were infused with chemogenetics to target IL glutamatergic neurons and then assigned to CON, STR-IMM or STR-R3. During the rest period of STR-R3 and the restraint for STR-IMM, the IL was inhibited using CNO (1mg/kg BW, i.p., daily), which ended before behavioral testing. STR-R3 with IL inhibition failed to demonstrate a tone-shock association as spontaneous recovery was not observed. CON with IL inhibition behaved somewhat like STR-IMM; freezing to the extinction context was enhanced. Consequently, inhibiting IL function during the rest period following chronic stress was particularly disruptive for learning in STR-R3, impaired freezing to a safe context for CON, and had no effect in STR-IMM. These studies show that time since the end of chronic stress (recently ended or with a delay) can interact with IL functioning to modify fear learning and response. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2020

PTSD Symptoms and Military-Specific Stigma in United States Veterans