Psychology 3316F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Heritability, Amygdala, Prolonged Exposure Therapy

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3316F/G
• Professor: Paul Frewen

Document Summary

It is crucial that we have a consensually based understanding of the term trauma. Need to provide operationally reliable and meaningful definitions of trauma for students, researchers, and clinicians while avoiding the bracket creep that is criticized by many modern researchers. Ptsd was introduced in dsm-3 in 1980. The differing definitions of trauma are based fundamentally on the psychodynamic and behavioural traditions, and on early work on the biological basis of stress response. Based mostly on sigmund freud (1920) and anna freud (1964) Trauma is defined in terms of stimulation that exceeds the individual"s ability to cope. Anna objected to the overuse of the term trauma, and advocated for a person- specific definition of the term. There was also an initial understanding of trauma as leading to impacts that are fleeting. Prolonged reactions to an event were not caused by the event itself, but by pre-morbid experiences.