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MGG202X – Sexual Trauma Exam Summaries Page 1 of 87 THEME ONE - DEFINING STRESS, CRISIS AND TRAUMA Stress: The strain we feel at different times in our lives or in different situations. A set of external forces impinging on an individual (unemployment, high crime rate) A set of psychological and physiological reactions experienced – sweaty hands, racing heart, negative self-talk. Nerves, anxiety, panic, tension, pressure. Stress should be considered an opportunity for growth; the spark that pushes us to challenge the situations we find ourselves in and to find new ways of coping. The extent to which the individual experiences stress depends on: The event itself The individual’s personality The individual’s ability to cope Crisis: A normal reaction that an individual has to a difficult experience that they have not had to face before. When a person is in a crisis they feel confused, overwhelmed and unable to cope. It may be an external event - work related, losing money; or an internal event caused by development – becoming a wife etc. Crisis can be a turning point – an opportunity for an individual to discover and use inner strengths to adjust to a changing world, find relevant supportive resources and learn new skills that can be generalised to resolve future crises. Trauma: Situations “in which the victims are rendered powerless and great danger is involved ” A profound deviation from normal life experiences Sudden, overwhelming and unanticipated. Individual experiences fear, helplessness. Loss of control and extreme powerlessness. The trauma inducing situations suggests a threat of injury or death of the person or others around them. Expected loss – parent, job. Loosing several family members, or an accident, natural disaster = unexpected, overwhelming, out of the ordinary. Judith Herman: “Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptions to life” Involve threats to life or bodily integrity, or close personal encounter with violence and death. Individual feels helplessness and terror Downloaded by Ayanda Myeza () lOMoARcPSD| MGG202X – Sexual Trauma Exam Summaries Page 2 of 87 The effects of trauma: Because of intensity and magnitude, trauma overtaxes the human’s ability to cope. May damage the mental health. Traumatised people feel and act as though their nervous systems have been disconnected from the present. Person is left with a persistent expectation of danger, an imprint of the traumatic event that does not want to fade and a numbing response of giving up that becomes generalised. Impact of trauma on psyche has major influence on the individual’s normal ways of thinking and feeling – so previous coping mechanisms are no longer effective / functional. Traumatic events may impact on the person’s personhood, individuality and humanity. The impact of the trauma may be aggravated by the insensitive handling of those who deal with them after their traumatic event. Different kinds of trauma Caused by nature – natural disaster: flood, fires, hurricanes Caused by humans – an atrocity – man made catastrophes: war, terrorism, bus disasters, civil unrest Unintentional violence – car accident, culpable homicide Intentional violence – physical assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, hijacking – all of which encompasses forms of victimisation involving a threat to life, health and limb. Sexual trauma falls within this category. Direct vs indirect trauma Traumatic event may affect witnesses and those who have direct contact with the direct victim = indirect traumatisation. Any person who witnesses a death, rape, assault of another is at risk of being traumatised. Symptoms experienced by victims of indirect trauma can be identical to those of the victims of direct trauma. Policeman, journalists, helping professionals – need to take precautions against this; have access to debriefing sessions Loved ones and family members / children of victims of trauma also can suffer indirect trauma. An individual can be both a direct and indirect victim of trauma. i.e. child witnesses mother being raped (indirect) whilst being held hostage during a robbery (direct) Single vs Multiple trauma Single event – armed robbery / loss of a limb / cancer Multiple – a person who has been hijacked several times. Downloaded by Ayanda Myeza () lOMoARcPSD| MGG202X – Sexual Trauma Exam Summaries Page 3 of 87 Continuous vs complex trauma Continuous traumatic stress: where people are exposed to on-going trauma. i.e live in areas of high levels of violence and constantly exposed and constant threat. They appear to develop a ‘numbing’ response to any new or additional traumatic events, making it more difficult to detect they are traumatised. May be mistakenly regarded as being lethargic / depressed. As they don’t understand what is happening to them – they don’t ask for help. Complex trauma: situations in which victims experience prolonged repeated traumatic events; usually a relationship between the victim and the offender . Marital rape / child who is sexually abused by parent. Very damaging – victim is under the control of the offender and cannot escape for extended periods People respond differently to all experiences of stress / crises. What is stressful to one person, may be regarded as a crisis by another, and as trauma by another. There is a hypothetical continuum that plots stress, crisis and trauma and demonstrates the increase in intensity from stress to trauma. Each person perceives his or her individual experiences in a unique way and practitioners should never use their definition of stress crisis and trauma, but the client’s definitions. Defining Sexual Trauma i. It’s a trauma of a sexual nature ii. The trauma creates emotional turmoil for the survivor iii. The trauma may impair the trauma survivors functioning in certain areas, such as selfesteem, relationships and others with sexuality. iv. These problems may only manifest much later, when the4 survivor develops an understanding of the wrongness of the activities he or she participated in, given that his or her participation my even have been passive. Sexual trauma often involves not just one single event, but a series of events. Sexual trauma affects a person’s sexual adjustment, wounds their soul, and impacts on many areas of his or her social functioning, creates havoc with health (HIV after rape) Critical issue: the extent to which a person is affected by an unanticipated outcome. It is trauma when it is unanticipated, the victim experiences a sense of powerlessness and has to deal with perceived threats to the self of loves ones. Rape and child sexual abuse Physiological origins of sexual trauma Theories – impotence, cancer of the genitals, HIV, infertility – all create a sense of helplessness, they are unplanned and unexpected, thereby creating confusing in the lives of