Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II The nature of traumatic stress
- Part III The role of psychosocial context in responses to trauma and disasters
- Part IV Responses to trauma across the life cycle
- 13 Children of war and children at war: child victims of terrorism in Mozambique
- 14 Stress and coping with the trauma of war in the Persian Gulf: the hospital ship USNS Comfort
- 15 Long-term sequelae of combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam: a comparative study
- 16 Psychophysiological aspects of chronic stress following trauma
- 17 Individual and community reactions to the Kentucky floods: findings from a longitudinal study of older adults
- Part V Conclusions
- Index
16 - Psychophysiological aspects of chronic stress following trauma
from Part IV - Responses to trauma across the life cycle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II The nature of traumatic stress
- Part III The role of psychosocial context in responses to trauma and disasters
- Part IV Responses to trauma across the life cycle
- 13 Children of war and children at war: child victims of terrorism in Mozambique
- 14 Stress and coping with the trauma of war in the Persian Gulf: the hospital ship USNS Comfort
- 15 Long-term sequelae of combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam: a comparative study
- 16 Psychophysiological aspects of chronic stress following trauma
- 17 Individual and community reactions to the Kentucky floods: findings from a longitudinal study of older adults
- Part V Conclusions
- Index
Summary
Exposure to traumatic events has been associated with a range of phenomena ranging from mild distress to more severe outcomes such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At the heart of many of these outcomes is the stress process, which under acute conditions can be considered adaptive and essential for survival. To be sure, stress due to trauma is a normal response, despite the fact that emotional and psychophysiological processes may be at abnormal levels for a period of time. Disordered responses may follow an event which is outside the realm of normal human experience and which involves extreme threat or privation, including natural disasters, humanmade events such as war, fires, airplane crashes, chemical, nuclear, or toxic accidents, and more individual level traumas such as victimization by crime, rape, or automobile accidents. The vast majority of victims of these events experience only transient symptoms and recover readily. However, some victims appear to experience long-lasting stress following some kinds of trauma. Under some conditions, stress appears to persist and may form the basis of PTSD. In such cases, abnormal levels of response persist for abnormally long periods of time. Davidson and Baum (1986) suggested that situations which are not necessarily intense, but which pose lasting threats, may be associated with persistent symptoms of stress, arid that these chronic stress reactions are very similar to posttraumatic stress disorder, and may differ only in the intensity of the symptoms.
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- Information
- Individual and Community Responses to Trauma and DisasterThe Structure of Human Chaos, pp. 360 - 377Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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