No description available.

No description available.

This study examined the role of internalized shame in mediating the relationship between severity of childhood sexual abuse and adult symptoms in three groups based on attribution of blame. The random community sample of 318 female survivors completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (Briere, 1996), Internalized Shame Scale (Cook, 2001), questions about frequency of abuse, duration, and specific characteristics (no physical contact to vaginal/anal intercourse with force) and the degree to which they blamed self, fate, or perpetrator. It was hypothesized that severity (measured by abuse characteristics, frequency, and duration) would predict symptoms (measured by subscales of dissociation, anxiety, sexual problems, depression, and sleep disturbance from TSC-40) and that Internalized shame would be a potential mediator in all three groups (blame self, blame fate, or blame perpetrator). Multiple group analysis in Structural Equation Modeling showed that severity and shame were related for all groups and that the relationship was strongest when survivors blamed themselves and weakest when they blamed perpetrators. Shame was a significant predictor of symptoms for all three groups with no significant differences between groups. Severity was a significant predictor of symptoms for the blame self and blame fate groups but not for the blame perpetrator group, with symptoms being the strongest in the blame self-group. Sobel tests showed that shame was a significant mediator for all three groups. Given these findings, therapists treating adult survivors who blame fate or the perpetrator for the abuse should consider addressing the underlying shame. When treating adult survivors that blame themselves, therapists should consider addressing this attribution of blame and its meaning in addition to focusing on shame.

No description available.

No description available.

Due to advances in medical care, the number of patients surviving critical illness is on the rise. As a result, our healthcare system has a new and growing subset of patients dealing with a variety of issues related to survivorship. These issues, called post-intensive care syndrome, fall into three pillars: physical, cognitive, and psychiatric. While targeted efforts have begun to attempt to manage the physical and cognitive deficits, how to treat the psychiatric deficits remains unclear. So far, the handful of studies attempting to treat these psychiatric outcomes via a variety of approaches have had only limited success. Further, there is an inadequate understanding of the patient perception of these experiences and to better grasp this may help target future studies. The proposed study is a randomized, non-blinded, longitudinal controlled trial with the goal to limit the development of psychiatric symptoms following ICU admission. The intervention, conducted by a trained, Licensed Clinical Social Worker will take place in the form of a one time, in hospital debriefing of the ICU experience. Following the intervention, the patients will be surveyed to identify the presence of PTSD symptoms at various time intervals following hospital discharge. In addition, a number of interviews will be recorded and undergo qualitative analysis to identify cohesive themes and develop a better understanding of the patient perception of their experience. If successful, this study would lead to an improved quality of life for this patient population, as well as lessen their dependence on the healthcare system, reducing the associated financial burden following ICU admission.

In December 2019, a novel version of the SARS virus, called SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. By mid-March of 2020, the United States had begun the process of the shutting down and quarantining to minimize the spread of the virus. In conjunction with a dramatic shift in professional experiences, counselors would also be exposed to greater stressors associated with COVID-19 while continuing work as shadowed "frontline" workers tending to the surge of those seeking mental health care resulting from increasing anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health conditions. However, despite the emerging information regarding the professional quality of life (ProQOL) and wellness of "frontline workers" there was little evidence emanating related to how the stressors of COVID-19 were impacting counselors. Compassion fatigue (CF), burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) are occupational hazards threatening counselors resulting from exposure to trauma, interpersonal stress and vocational demand. These phenomena have been extensively researched among counselors and demonstrate positive relationships between counselors' experiences of stress and higher levels of negative compassion outcomes. Similarly, wellness has been empirically supported as a countermeasure to these professional threats, serving to minimize the effects of burnout, CF and STS by improving the internal resiliency of counselors while simultaneously improving experiences of compassion satisfaction (CS). However, aside from conceptual speculation and preliminary investigation into counselor coping patterns, little evidence has surfaced demonstrating what relationship exists between counselor wellness and the unique stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used quantitative methodology to analyze a cross-sectional survey of a national sample of counselors in the United States (N = 318) that assessed for counselor wellness, ProQOL and reported, COVID-19 related stress. This investigation examined how counselor wellness and ProQOL differs during a later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous samples, how specific counselor demographics related to COVID-19 stress appraisal and how counselor reports of COVID-19 related stress relates to their wellness and ProQOL. Results indicate a significant difference between counselor reports of wellness and ProQOL compared to previous investigations, with a pattern of this sample producing lower wellness and CS scores and higher burnout and STS scores. Additionally, significant relationships between counselor gender and racial identities and COVID-19 related stress were found. Lastly, results indicate significant, negative relationships between reported COVID-19 stress and multiple aspects of wellness, while significant, positive relationships were found between reported COVID-19 stress and both burnout and STS. The findings of this investigation will contribute to the foundational insight into how counselor reports of COVID-19 related stress relates to their wellness and ProQOL. / Doctor of Philosophy / Over the last two years, the United States has been experiencing the stress and loss associated with the world-wide, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Counselors have continued to provide mental health and school-counseling related services to their clients and students despite exposure to the unique demands and stressors related to COVID-19. Regardless of increased stress exposure, little evidence is available to explain how stress related to COVID-19 has impacted counselor professional quality of life (ProQOL) and wellness – both of which are essential for professional longevity and ethical practice. The current investigation explored and examined how current, reported COVID-19 related stress related to reported wellness and ProQOL for counselors within the United States. Counselors were found to have lower wellness and compassion satisfaction (CS) scores, and higher burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) scores, as compared to samples from before the pandemic. Counselors with racial and gender minority identities were also found to demonstrate higher COVID-19 stress appraisal. Lastly, COVID-19 related stress was found to have negative relationships with counselor wellness and positive relationships with both burnout and STS, thus forming a negative relationship with CS. Further research is needed to help determine how sociocultural events within the United States upon counselor wellness and professional quality of life, as these have occurred in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, further research is required to understand how minority groups of counselors have uniquely experienced the COVID-19 pandemic and how those experiences impact their reports of wellness and ProQOL.

This study investigates the “the cost of caring” (Figley, 1995) for educators who teach and work with traumatized children; that is children who live in challenging social environments with ongoing stressors, such as family physical abuse, sexual assault, neglect, community violence, bereavement and loss issues, parental mental health and substance abuse, and homelessness. This study examines the theoretical framework of Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). The phenomenon of STS has been investigated in depth for professionals, such as social workers, counselors/therapists, hotline/crisis workers, law enforcement officers, nurses, emergency medical technicians/paramedics, firefighters, and disaster relief workers (Bride et al, 2007). This study explores how teachers address the emotional stressors of teaching traumatized children, the impact of their work on them both personally and professionally, if teachers are able to incorporate self-care strategies, and explores the applicability of STS to elementary educators

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The aim of this study was to look at the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the hippocampus, specifically any variations in volume between individuals with PTSD and a control group. Two databases, PubMed and Web of Science, were utilised to locate literature, with a focuson recent (5-year) articles. These were the study's inclusion requirements: (1) inclusion of adults with PTSD; (2) MRI as a method of studying changes in the brain ; (3) Comparison of outcomes with a control group with or without trauma. This studys exclusion criteria were: (1) non-English language papers, (2) non- adults participants, and (3) other imaging method than MRI. These criteria were intended to ensure the selection of appropriate articles and the uniformity of the systematic review. All the studies looked at MRI to investigate structural changes in the volume of the hippocampus. In the end I investigated 10 studies with a total of 3,826 participants and the findings of these investigations revealed that some studies shown dicreasing of hippocampal volume between patients with PTSD and the control group, whereas others found no such changes as the result of the investigation. These disparate findings show a lack of agreement in the available literature on the influence of PTSD on hippocampus volume. The selection of only recent (5 years) papers and the limited number of studies were the constraints. However, due to a lack of time, broader research could not be done, which made it difficult to draw more accurate conclusions from the study.