The psychological trauma from a traumatic event is known to be 'contagious' for a witness. Psychotherapists who work with traumatised clients can potentially experience terror, anger and despair; causing secondary traumatic stress that can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. So, how do psychotherapists, who often carry their own trauma histories, bear such fear and pain when being with and listening empathically to traumatised clients without feeling overwhelmed or losing a sense of hope? The purpose of this grounded theory study was to identify the main concerns of psychotherapists when working with traumatised clients and to describe and generate a conceptual model that explains the processes therapists use to continually manage these concerns. Over a period of ten months, eleven psychotherapists with a minimum of five years work experience were recruited from the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (NZAP). Constant comparative analysis of eleven interviews generated through open-ended questions was carried out. A total of twenty-one drawings obtained at different stages of the participant interviews, were used to fully capture the inner world of the traumatic impact. The emerging theory, whose development is grounded in the data, shows that psychotherapists grow through three main psychosocial developmental stages of balancing the impact of trauma: DOING to protect from pain and fear, BALANCING doing with being, and BEING with trust, pain and joy. The participants, however, were likely to involuntarily recycle the three stages when experiencing personal traumatic stress or organisational stressors, in addition to holding clients' trauma. The intention of this research was to raise awareness of work-related traumatic stress, and to provide an educational conceptual model to assist psychotherapists' understanding of how to positively manage secondary traumatic stress and its impact on the physical, emotional and spiritual, before it manifests in burnout, disillusionment or illness.

Background: Little is known about the relationship between women's birthing experiences and the development of trauma symptoms. This study aimed to determine the incidence of acute trauma symptoms and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women as a result of their labor and delivery experiences, and identify factors that contributed to the women's psychological distress. Method: Using a prospective, longitudinal design, women in their last trimester of pregnancy were recruited from four public hospital antenatal clinics. Four to six weeks postpartum, telephone interviews were conducted with participants (n = 499) and explored the medical and midwifery management of the birth, perceptions of intrapartum care, and the presence of trauma symptoms. Results: One in three women (33%) identified a traumatic birthing event and reported the presence of at least three trauma symptoms. Twenty-eight women (5.6%) met DSM-IV criteria for acute posttraumatic stress disorder. Antenatal variables were not found to contribute to the development of acute or chronic trauma symptoms. The level of obstetric intervention experienced during childbirth (beta = .351, p <.0001) and the perception of inadequate intrapartum care (beta = .319, p <.0001) during labor were consistently associated with the development of acute trauma symptoms. Conclusions: Posttraumatic stress disorder following childbirth is an under-recognized phenomenon. Women who experienced both a high level of obstetric intervention and were dissatisfied with their intrapartum care were more likely to develop trauma symptoms than women who received a high level of obstetric intervention or women who perceived their care to be inadequate. Such findings should prompt a serious review of intrusive obstetric intervention during labor and delivery, and the psychological care provided to birthing women.

Attentional bias effects for threat and emotional words were investigated, using both the emotional Stroop and emotional lexical decision paradigms. Twenty-eight controls and twenty-eight survivors of sexual assault participated in this study, which comprised three key comparisons. First, key predictions of the threat and emotionality hypotheses were compared, in particular specific and general threat effects, and positive and negative emotionality effects. Second, two separate group comparisons were conducted, specifically controls versus survivors of sexual assault overall, and a matched subset of controls versus PTSD positive survivors of sexual assault versus PTSD negative survivors of sexual assault. Third, performance on the emotional Stroop task and emotional lexical decision task paradigms were compared directly. Slowed colour naming responses (i.e. interference) were observed for both threat effects and emotionality effects in the emotional Stroop task. For the emotional lexical decision task, slowed lexical decisions (i.e. interference) were observed for threat effects, whereas speeded lexical decisions (i.e. facilitation) were observed for emotionality effects. The findings of the current study indicate that threat and emotionality effects may co-exist in both control and survivor populations. The relationship between the presence or absence of PTSD symptoms and threat and emotionality effects requires further investigation with larger sample sizes. There may be a relationship between the presence of PTSD symptoms and specific threat effects, however the findings of the current study for general threat information were inconclusive. No relationship was evident between the presence of absence of PTSD symptoms and positive or negative emotionality effects. The current findings suggest that the emotional Stroop task may be better suited to quantifying threat effects but not emotionality effects, whereas the emotional lexical decision task appears to be able to quantify both threat and emotionality effects.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-250). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss&rft%5Fval%5Ffmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss:MQ99313

The Primary Care Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PC-PTSD) screen (Prins et al., 2003) is used by the Department of Defense to identify military members who are at increased risk of PTSD. This screen has been offered to all returning deployers since 2005. However, validation studies of PC-PTSD scores from military samples have seldom employed a significant number of female subjects and no published studies have examined it for gender bias. Ruling out bias is important because routine under-identification of PTSD risk in any group could result in hindered access to needed assessment and/or care. With the current proportion of military females historically high (Women’s Research & Education Institute, 2007), it is imperative that the PC-PTSD be analyzed to ensure measurement equivalence across gender. Using a large sample of male and female veterans returning from deployment, the validity of the PC-PTSD scores was first examined by conducting a differential item functioning (DIF) analysis across male and female subgroups. Then, using a clinical diagnosis as the criterion, both logistic regression and diagnostic likelihood ratio methods were employed to assess for differential predictive validity by gender. Finally, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine convergent and divergent validity in a two-factor model containing both PC-PTSD and depression screen responses. Results revealed no statistically significant gender-related DIF or differential prediction of PTSD by PC-PTSD scores. Good convergent and divergent validity were also observed in the CFA analysis. The results generally supported the continued use of the PC-PTSD with both male and female military veterans returning from deployment. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research were discussed.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 44-54.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-101). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ86319

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">Limitations of the study include the issue of counsellor variables and the fact that the participants varied between receiving a debriefing on a group or individual basis. The experience of the trauma debriefings were explored but more specific information relating to debriefing could have been elicited. Therefore, these findings cannot be generalised and further research could<font face="Times New Roman"> explore the utility and efficacy of trauma debriefing.</font></p> </font></p>

Lucid Dreaming (LD) is defined as the phenomenon of becoming consciously aware of dreaming while still dreaming. In sleep laboratory experiments LD has been verified to occur during REM sleep stage by proficient lucid dreamers who have signaled while becoming lucid through specific pre-determined eye-movements. Using this method, (lucid) dreamed activity has been shown to correlate with both psychophysiological and neurophysiological responses to those observable if the same activity was to be performed during wakefulness. LD has also shown potential to be of therapeutic value, in reducing recurrent nightmare frequency. Recurrent nightmare sufferers engaging in Lucid Dreaming Treatment (LDT) show reduced nightmare frequency after treatment. As such, LDT has been suggested to be effective in the treatment of posttraumatic nightmares in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The attitude and feeling of control provided by LDT has been shown to be fruitful also in fearful waking situations, indicating that LDT might be effective in disorders epitomized by fear.

Trauma research has been predominantly focused on the study of the negative psychological sequelae of traumatic experience. Recently, however, increased empirical attention has been paid to the potential for positive changes, or posttraumatic growth, derived from survivors’ struggle with trauma. There is evidence accumulating in support of this phenomenon following various types of traumatic events. Using an online, cross-sectional design, the present study examined posttraumatic growth among 143 survivors of interpersonal violence. Furthermore, the relationship between posttraumatic growth and the severity of psychological distress symptoms, as well as between growth and hope was explored. Results indicated that the severity of depressive symptoms was negatively related to growth, while the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and hope were found to positively predict growth. Associations between posttraumatic growth and demographic and interpersonal violence characteristics did not emerge. The potential implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.