It is natural to feel afraid during and after being involved in a traumatic situation. These situations include warfare, assault, abuse, disasters, or even sudden unexpected death of a loved one. Fear causes changes in the body that act as a defensive mechanism against it. This response is commonly known as, “fight-or-flight” and is a reaction meant to protect a person or animal from harm. Most people who are affected by a traumatic situation recover from the initial symptoms and are able to return to their daily life, however, this is not the case for everyone.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition that develops in some individuals that have experienced a traumatic event and is characterized by three clusters of symptoms that arise in the aftermath. The first cluster is composed of …show more content…
A study done in 2005 by Rau, Decola, and Fanselow developed a different model in which the basis was fear conditioning and defensive behaviors. In situations where danger is present, humans and other animal are focused on the immediate danger. These situations tend to be dominated by fear and limit the responses that can be made to protect the organism. So in order to be truly adaptive fear, stress, and defense reactions must be rapidly activated when necessary as well as appropriate to the situation, this fear must be regulated. Understanding the appropriate responses and regulation of fear also allows us to understand when fear is not appropriately regulated. Fear conditioning, where rats and mice receive electric shock in a relationship with environmental cues has proven to be a valuable model of these features of defensive behaviors (Rau, Decola, & Fanselow, 2005). This knowledge has mostly come directly from Pavlovian fear conditioning. This fear conditioning alone does not provide a sufficient model of all the complexities of
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition that develops in some individuals that have experienced a traumatic event and is characterized by three clusters of symptoms that arise in the aftermath. The first cluster is composed of …show more content…
A study done in 2005 by Rau, Decola, and Fanselow developed a different model in which the basis was fear conditioning and defensive behaviors. In situations where danger is present, humans and other animal are focused on the immediate danger. These situations tend to be dominated by fear and limit the responses that can be made to protect the organism. So in order to be truly adaptive fear, stress, and defense reactions must be rapidly activated when necessary as well as appropriate to the situation, this fear must be regulated. Understanding the appropriate responses and regulation of fear also allows us to understand when fear is not appropriately regulated. Fear conditioning, where rats and mice receive electric shock in a relationship with environmental cues has proven to be a valuable model of these features of defensive behaviors (Rau, Decola, & Fanselow, 2005). This knowledge has mostly come directly from Pavlovian fear conditioning. This fear conditioning alone does not provide a sufficient model of all the complexities of