The relationship between attributional style and post-traumatic stress disorder in addicted patients

Abstract

It has been proposed that the animal experiments on inescapable shock may serve as a model for PTSD in humans. Learned helplessness theory, which also derives from the experiments on inescapable shock, proposes that helplessness behavior in humans is the result of people's expectations about events which they perceive to be uncontrollable. The way a person explains or attributes cause to events which occur influences these expectations. The symptoms of PTSD and helplessness behavior heavily overlap. The present study tested whether there was, in fact, a relationship between a proven measure of the attributional style proposed by helplessness theory, the Attributional Style Questionnaire, and measures of PTSD in a group of 99 patients seeking treatment for alcohol dependence and/or pathological gambling. Consistent, significant relationships were found between learned helplessness attributional style and a variety of measures of PTSD. Also replicated were earlier reports of a relationship between coaddiction (alcohol and gambling) and symptoms of PTSD. The usefulness of learned helplessness theory in explaining PTSD and devising treatments for portions of the disorder are discussed.