Total institutions' (which include prisons) unique context prescribes "confinement" of inmates. Coping mechanisms applied "outside" (especially the ability to create distance from stressful events) is thus ineffective. Another common feature is lack of privacy, which may result in "forced intimacy" - individuals being forced into a situation of physical and psychological "invasion" (beyond the norm) of their person/personal space. Victims lose control over intimate decisions, including who may and may not be intimate with them. Within prisons, gangs "force intimacy" by sexually victimizing inmates, taking advantage of the context to heighten their power, and to control inmates "under" them. Four (subjects) victims' experiences and means of adaptation/ empowerment were investigated phenomenologically. Results indicated that inadequately empowered victims suffer prolonged and repeated victimization - a continued "posttraumatic stress disorder" - which is more traumatizing and draining than one circumscribed traumatic event (due to its intensity, immobilization and resulting drastic change of "personality"). / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

In my thesis, I postulated the target to map the methods and procedures applied by the CR Police, Regional Police Headquarters of the South-Bohemian Region within the primary, secondary as well as tertiary prevention of posttraumatic reactions and disorder. A partial target of the thesis is finding out the rate of the satisfaction with availability of intervention care for policemen and employees of the Regional Police Headquarters of the South-Bohemian Region, finding out the rate of the awareness, usability and satisfaction with the care of the posttraumatic intervention team in the South-Bohemian Region, awareness of the service Help Line in crisis and its usability. Moreover I postulated the goal to map the interest in the possible internet helpline in the scope of IZS with elaboration of SWOD analysis. Everybody, also policemen may suffer from stress reaction. Also they can have the psychical and physical signs of an acute stress reaction. They perform the most of service acts, interventions in a routine way, however, besides this, also situations occur, differing from the normal life experience and policemen get in this way very often into the stress situations, which can arouse deep mental turbulences. The impact of feelings on the mental state in case of extreme experiences is a normal human reaction in a not normal situation. At present, each policeman has the possibility to ask for help a team of specially trained experts, the team of posttraumatic intervention care. In the team, not only psychologists are working, but also experienced policemen, experts of the branch of the Ministry of Interior and the priests prepared to help with their experience, erudition and knowledge acquired by a special training. Since 2001 the impacted person may call the anonymous Crisis Help Line, which is a supporting part of the posttraumatic intervention care for the policemen, firemen, employees of the branch of the Ministry of Interior and their family members. The crisis help line is also at disposal to the public in case of extraordinary events and crisis situations. For this reason, this thesis treats the methods of posttraumatic intervention care, awareness, usability, satisfaction and trust in these branch offices of the CR Police.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-01-22T17:33:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 andreiamonteirofelippe.pdf: 1203907 bytes, checksum: a400095495631e4ababc94dcb3696c65 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-01-25T18:55:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 andreiamonteirofelippe.pdf: 1203907 bytes, checksum: a400095495631e4ababc94dcb3696c65 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-25T18:55:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 andreiamonteirofelippe.pdf: 1203907 bytes, checksum: a400095495631e4ababc94dcb3696c65 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-04 / A violência contra a mulher é considerada um problema de saúde pública, devido às graves consequências físicas e mentais que produz, dentre elas, o Transtorno de Estresse Pós-Traumático (TEPT). Objetivos: Investigar a relação entre TEPT e violência contra a mulher praticada por parceiros íntimos, com ênfase nas vítimas atendidas pelo setor de psicologia na DPOF (Delegacia de Orientação e Proteção à Família) de Juiz de Fora. Os objetivos específicos são: constatar a prevalência de TEPT nos casos de VPI acima citados; descrever a frequência de fatores como: histórico de violência na família de origem, vitimização prévia, tipo de violência sofrida, uso de álcool e drogas pelo parceiro, bem como o tempo de exposição ao evento traumático no grupo estudado; verificar a associação entre percepção de suporte social, TEPT e depressão. Métodos: Estudo transversal, quantitativo, descritivo e associativo. A amostra compõe-se de 41 mulheres vítimas de violência por parceiro íntimo, que recorreram à DPOF no primeiro semestre de 2013. Foram aplicados os seguintes instrumentos: entrevista estruturada, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist- Civilian Version (PCL-C), Escala de Percepção de Suporte Social (EPSS) e Inventário de Depressão de Beck (BDI-I). Resultados: A partir do rastreamento dos sintomas do TEPT, obteve-se a prevalência de possíveis casos do transtorno em 82,9% das mulheres entrevistadas. Houve uma associação positiva entre depressão e TEPT, e negativa entre TEPT e percepção de suporte social. Conclusões: O trabalho aponta para a necessidade de se criar estratégias específicas de intervenção para mulheres vítimas de VPI, diante da alta prevalência do transtorno. É preciso, especialmente, realizar projetos nos órgãos jurídicos de proteção à mulher, a fim de fortalecer o suporte social da mesma ao enfrentar situações adversas relacionadas à agressão. / Violence against women is considered a public health problem due to serious physical and mental consequences it produces, such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Objectives: To investigate the relationship between PTSD and violence against women by intimate partners, with emphasis on victims served by psychology sector in Juiz de Fora DPOF (Precinct Guidance and Family Protection). The specific objectives are: to find out the prevalence of PTSD in IPV cases cited above, to describe the frequency of factors such as: history of violence in the primitive family, previous victimization, type of violence, use of alcohol and drugs by the partner, as well as the time of exposure to the traumatic event in the studied group; to verify the association between perceived social support, depression and PTSD. Methods: The study is cross-sectional, quantitative, descriptive and associative. The sample consists of 41 female victims of intimate partner violence, who resorted to DPOF the first half of 2013. The following instruments applied were: Structured interview, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist- Civilian Version (PCL-C), Perceived Social Support Scale (EPSS) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-I). Results: From the trace of the symptoms of PTSD, we obtained the prevalence of disorder possible cases in 82,9% of the women interviewed. There was a positive association between depression and PTSD, and negative association between PTSD and perceived social support. Conclusions: The study points to the need to create specific intervention strategies for women victims of IPV, given the high prevalence of this disorder. We must especially perform projects in the legal bodies to protect women in order to strengthen their social support to face adverse situations related to the aggression.

MA (Psychology) / Department of Psychology

Objective: Previous studies have established an association between number of traumatic experiences and alexithymia. The present study examines this relationship in a large-scale representative sample of the German general population (N=2,507) and explores the potential mediating effects of posttraumatic symptomatology, particularly avoidance/numbing. Methods: Alexithymia was assessed with the German version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Posttraumatic symptomatology was operationalized by the symptom score of the modified German version of the Posttraumatic Symptom Scale, and traumatic experiences were assessed with the trauma list of the Munich Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Two mediation analyses were conducted. Results: Of the total sample, 24.2% (n=606) reported at least one traumatic experience, 10.6% (n=258) were classified as alexithymic, and 2.4% (n=59) fulfilled the criteria of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Participants who had survived five or more traumatic experiences had significantly higher alexithymia sum scores. The PTSD symptom cluster avoidance/numbing mediated the association between the number of traumatic experiences and alexithymia. Conclusions: Our findings illustrate an association between number of traumatic experiences and alexithymia and the influence of emotional avoidance and numbing within this relationship. The significant relationship between alexithymia and number of traumatic experiences in a general population sample further supports the concept of multiple and complex traumatization as associated with alexithymia. The results suggest the importance of further investigations determining the causal impact of alexithymia both as a potential premorbid trait and as consequence of traumatization. Lastly, future investigations are needed to clarify alexithymia as a distinct trauma-relevant characteristic for better diagnostics and specialized trauma-integrative therapy.

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

Variables predicting the effects of surgery in patients with low back pain Abstract The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the knowledge about pain and its types, especially chronic pain. Than we focus on low back pain and currently used approaches in the treatment of this syndrome. In this work we summarize the influence of central sensitization and adverse life experineces and posttraumatic stress disorder on pain (especially low back pain). In the practical part, we investigated the effect of central sensitization and adverse life events and posttraumatic stress disroder on the effect of spinal surgery in low back region. The results were obtained using Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI), PTSD Cecklist dor DSM-5 (PCL- 5) a Life Event Checklist (LEC-5 Standard), Short Form 36 Helth Survey Questionnaire (SF- 36), NASS Lumbar Spine Questionnaire. The obtained data were statistically evaluated and processed. Higher scores of CSI and LEC-5 (more adverse life events) were both statistically significantly correlated with worse low back surgery outcomes. At the same time, a statistically significant relationship between PCL-5 (checklist of PTSD symptoms) and CSI was confirmed. Keywords Pain, central sensitization, adverse life experiences, adverse life events, PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder,...

Evidence from self-reports and laboratory studies suggests that recall of nontrauma autobiographical memories may be disturbed in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but investigations in everyday life are sparse. This study investigated unintentional nontrauma and trauma memories in trauma survivors with and without PTSD (N = 52), who kept an autobiographical memory diary for a week. We investigated whether unintentional nontrauma memories show an overgeneral memory bias and further memory abnormalities in people with PTSD, and whether unintentional trauma memories show distinct features. Compared to the no-PTSD group, the PTSD group recorded fewer nontrauma memories, which were more overgeneral, more often from before the trauma or related to the trauma, were perceived as distant, and led to greater dwelling. Trauma memories were more vivid, recurrent, and present and led to greater suppression and dwelling. Within the PTSD group, the same features distinguished trauma and nontrauma memories. Results are discussed regarding theories of autobiographical memory and PTSD.

No description available.

In the United States, approximately 7.7 million individuals are affected by posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at any given time. Though women are likelier to develop PTSD symptoms, men are exposed to more traumatic events in their lifetimes. Empirically- supported PTSD options exist, however clinical application of these treatments may not consistently culminate in beneficial outcomes. Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) has demonstrated positive treatment outcomes for a variety of mental and physical disorders. Nonetheless, there is a lack of robust research related to the treatment experiences of men who have participated in DMT for trauma-related symptoms. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore this research gap. Focusing on adult male trauma survivors, the research question addressed the lived experiences of participating in DMT and the meaning ascribed to this involvement. Eleven adult male participants were interviewed via audio-recorded telephone interviews consisting of semistructured interview questions. Through a constructivist lens, the modified Van Kaam method of analysis was implemented revealing 4 emergent themes. The findings of this explorative study suggested positive PTSD symptom outcomes for all 11 participants including improvements in social belongingness, social acceptance, quality of life, and a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression. Accordingly, the findings of this research may help to advance social change through broadening clinical awareness of the beneficial neurogenic treatment advantages of somatic and creative interventions such as DMT for PTSD. Moreover, these findings may augment existing research related to movement- based treatment options for individuals coping with PTSD and trauma-related symptoms.