Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Implications For Brain Essay -- Chemis

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Implications For Brain Throughout the course of this semester we have examined numerous issues which have all had different implications for the brain = behavior argument. Some who have been skeptical of the validity of this idea have been swayed by observations that processes and behaviors they originally thought to have a cloudy neurobiological basis in fact have a sound biological and physiological underpinning. One such phenomenon which can help elucidate the ongoing brain = behavior debate is Post-Traumatic Stress disorder, or PTSD. Most people are familiar in some sense with the phenomenon of PTSD. This phenomenon has been renamed, reworked, and redefined numerous times over the past century. The approach to understanding PTSD and the more general notion of traumatic experience has been an interdisciplinary undertaking, involving the fields of medically oriented psychiatry, psychology, sociology, history, and even literature (1). The reason for this interdisciplinary approach is that the greater perception of the phenomenon is seen as having much more than a simple biological basis. It is seen as having multiple external influences. This view is a result of the often overwhelming sense that whatever biological mechanisms are present must be unintelligibly complex. However, there are certain aspects of PTSD which, upon examination, allow one an easy foray into the neurobiology of the disorder. Cathy Caruth, a leading trauma theorist, discusses the definition of PTSD: "While the precise definition of post-traumatic stress disorder is contested, most descriptions generally agree that there is a response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events, which takes the form of rep... ... , by Cathy Caruth, a leading trauma theorist. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/ 2) Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: One Method for Processing Traumatic Memory," from Traumatology , by Pat Ogden and Kekuni Minton. http://www.fsu.edu/~trauma/v6i3/v6i3a3.html 3) Of One Blood , a novel by Pauline Hopkins. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Rivers/ 4)"The Repression of War Experience" , by W.H.R. Rivers. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Rivers/ 5) "The Neurophysiology of Dissociation and Chronic Disease," from Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback , by Robert C. Scaer. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Rivers/ 6) "Approaches to the Treatment of PTSD" , by Bessel A. van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart. http://www.trauma-pages.com/vanderk.htm 7) The Psychology of Fear and Stress , by J. Gray. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/