| Popis: |
Certain disease phenomena attend, or they may follow with a variable latent interval, overwhelming mental excitation. The intensity and duration of the impacting excitation becomes definably excessive when it exceeds the tolerance of the psyche so that it can no longer shield itself for major functions, and in short, it can no longer (immediately or later) maintain adequate inner integration and expedient outer adjustment for healthy survival of the organism. The response of the organism is not only related to the quantity of outer stimulation, but to its meanings for that particular individual, with resultant self-generated inner excitation of greater or lesser amount. The concept of massive and overwhelming psychic trauma and that of cumulative traumata developed and evolved from consideration and investigation of such disease phenomena as conversion reactions, states of hypervigilance, multiple phobias, periodic alterations of consciousness with later amnesia, recurrent nightmares, personality changes (often of impoverishment), and other symptoms which were observed to attend and follow, sometimes episodically, traumatic experiences in both war and peace. In this century, such consideration as applied to mental imbalance and nervous symptoms related to extreme experiences in war was influenced powerfully by the knowledge gradually gained from the investigation and treatment of psychoneurosis usually unrelated to wartime events. |
