Abstract
Recent investigations propose that cognitive characteristics of autobiographical memory significantly interact with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A traumatic event becoming more or less central in a person’s identity and life story might influence development of the disorder. Studies show high correlations between event centrality (EC) and PTSD. Participated in this study 68 treatment-seeking individuals referred to a specialized service for suspected trauma-related disorder: 39 matched criteria for PTSD and 29 were exposed to trauma without PTSD. Our aims were to explore how the groups differ regarding EC, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic cognitions, PTSD symptom severity, and peritraumatic dissociative experience; and how distinctively EC interacts with the measures in each group. The PTSD group had higher scores in all variables but dissociation. EC correlated with overall PTSD symptoms only in the PTSD group and with dissociation only in the no-PTSD group. Findings support a model emphasizing the role of memory processes in PTSD. People exposed to trauma who developed PTSD had the memory of the traumatic experience more intensively governing their sense of self and thus eliciting more negative cognitive reactions. As EC facilitates recollection of the traumatic event, it could also mediate a semantization process that reinforces and increases posttraumatic symptoms.
Highlights
Most people will experience highly stressful events at some point in their lives
We found differences between groups concerning event centrality (EC), with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) group scoring higher
It is a basic process that pertains to the system of Autobiographical Memory (AM) itself
Summary
Most people will experience highly stressful events at some point in their lives. Epidemiological studies estimate that 40 to 90 % of the general population experiences or witnesses at least one traumatic event across the life span (Creamer et al 2001; Kessler et al 1995). In terms of cognitive content, One of the integrative human capacities to adapt to changes and difficulties in the environment is the cognitive ability to organize personally experienced events in terms of self-reference. This process allows for extracting meaning from them. AM entails cognitive processes involving the recollection of events that belong to an individual’s past. They differ from episodic memories for its significant interaction with the individual’s life narrative (Rubin, 2006)
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