trauma

Reflection Paper

Reflection: pick two concepts or points of consideration from the assigned reading to reflect on.

Formatting Requirements: Single space, 12 pt. font, 1 in margins, Justified (or sometimes called block) formatting, 1 1/2 -2 pages, Word document.

Concept: Blah, blah, blah.

Personal Reaction: Blah, blah, blah.

Professional Use: Blah, blah, blah.

Briefly provided your understanding of the concept, comment on your personal reaction to the concept, and your professional opinion of how it would be useful with examples (or how you might struggle with it). You will receive full credit for all completed reflections that are turned in on time that meet the criteria above.

SAMPLE:

Concept: Trauma memories

Personal Reaction: Human store some of their memories in both the conscious and the subconscious mind. Triggering of such memories occurs upon an individual experiencing or seeing something similar to the traumatizing events. Positive and negative memories exist in human minds, but differences exist on how an individual thinks about positive memories and those of traumatic experiences. As highlighted in the text, differences exist regarding the organization of the memories and the individual’s physical reactions to the memories. An individual’s traumatic memories are disorganized since most are overwhelmed by images, sensations, sounds, and emotions as one recalls the traumatizing events, unlike the pleasant memories where an individual has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Exposing an individual to some of the cues to the traumatizing events results in the triggering or retrieving the traumatic memories because of the activation of the neural systems that store the memories. Some of the reactivated memories may be susceptible to modification, but the modification is dependent on the circumstances of the person recalling the memory. High-stress levels relate to the retrieval of implicit or explicit traumatic memories where the stress hormones act on what the brain activates that may contribute to the strengthening of the original memory of trauma through memory reconsolidation. The occurrences of such events in an individual’s memory may make it hard for the individual to forget some of the traumatizing events that the subconscious part of the brain keeps.

Professional Use: An individual does not have to be a combat soldier to develop anxiety disorder since everyone might have some form of posttraumatic experiences that keep on recurring on an individual’s mind resulting in the individual experiencing severe emotional trauma. An individual’s experiences are associated with a host of cues, mainly subconscious that keeps most of the experiences an individual goes through. An individual can remember the learned association the subconscious level keeps long after the conscious memory lost such memories. Conscious triggering of the memory does not have to take place for an individual to recall the traumatic memories. The subconscious system of the brain keeping such memories may make it hard for therapists to handle an individual with PTSD. However, the understanding of the keeping of the memories may provide a way of navigating through the ways of ensuring that an individual forgets some of the traumatizing events or offers an alternative to the traumatizing events an individual remembers. An example of a way to help an individual heal from emotional trauma is the retrieval of traumatic memories when the individual is under safe conditions. When one is under safe conditions, his or her stress levels are low thus allowing the individual that opportunity of updating or reorganizing the trauma experiences. The possibility of linking the trauma to other experiences as well as diminishing its destructive impact exist and therapist use such a form when handling trauma patients.

Answer preview

Concept 1: Trauma memories

Personal reaction; Individuals suffer from many forms of horrific events that drive their senses of the limits. In most cases, they are alert to danger, have nightmares and flashbacks of the past and become anxious. As highlighted in the text, a traumatic event robs off the person the drive offers individual charge and instead is influenced by the current circumstances (Van der Kolk, 2015). In other words, one lives in confusion about what kind of a person he or she is and what is right. Individuals with traumatic memories strive to establish a calm and attempt to concentrate on what they are doing not to react emotionally such as becoming enraged and weary to perform. Any attempt to trigger the past experiences causes anxiety since the subconscious mind inflicts the conscious mind and refreshes the unfolding through the neural system. However, such a skill depends….

(1100 words)