Experience Of Trauma

The experience of trauma is an unavoidable and common feature of life. Epidemiological studies indicate that most adults and children will experience at least one potentially traumatic event in their life (Mancini & Bonanno, 2010). When these events occur, individuals respond in a variety of ways. Further implications highlight the need for additional research focusing on measuring individual differences in people’s responses to the traumatic event (Mancini & Bonnano, 2010). Trauma is a widely defined topic in psychopathology that has been studied in many domains over the years (Butler et al., 2009). The general definition of trauma is an individual’s emotional response to an adverse event, which may cause severe emotional or psychological …show more content…
However, in more recent literature, it is stated that resilient behavior is actually more common than other outcomes (Bonnano, 2005). Nonetheless, there are many adverse outcomes in terms of psychopathology related to trauma that many individuals are burdened with: including anxiety, PTSD, and depression. Many experience social maladjustment and acute psychological distress in their exposure to trauma, some never being able to recover (Gold et al., 2000). Historically, there have been few attempts to distinguish subgroups within the broad category of individuals exposed to potential trauma who do not develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore it can be imperative to examine the associations between the severity of trauma and the outcome behavior (resilience/psychopathological dysfunction) (Ying, Wu, Lin & Jiang, …show more content…
It is our intention to use experience of stressful life events to examine the moderating effect of resilience on demoralization. In order to assess for trauma we have decided to use the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for Civilians (PCL-C) (Weathers, et al., 1994) and the Trauma History Screen (THS) (Carlson et. al, 2005). The PCL-C has become one of the most widely studied self-report measures of PTSD (Weathers et al.). The PCL-C allows self-report of the capacity the individual is affected by the stressor/trauma. This means that the individual is able to report symptoms they may or may not be experiencing post-trauma. Therefore, we included the Trauma History Screen as a measure in the current study as a brief tool that allows for identification of trauma experiences and gives the individual an opportunity to briefly explain the impact that this event(s) may have had on their emotional, physical and psychological