Cognitive processes in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) consists of a pattern of symptoms that include cognitive, affective, sensory and behavioral systems. In PTSD, the individual experiences disturbing emotions and sensations such as anxiety, panic, depression, anger, tension, high startle response and hyper-vigilance as a result of re-experiencing traumatic memories, flashbacks, attention difficulties, memory loss, nightmares and intrusive thoughts. To get rid of these emotions, he avoids all stimuli that remind the traumatic event. The cognitive approach asserts that cognitions play a triggering and maintaining role for these symptoms and tries to explain them with the information processing framework. According to this approach, the traumatic event that is experienced is processed differently from daily, ordinary events. This different information processing strategy stands out in attention, memory, dissociation, cognitive beliefs, cognition-affect processes and coping strategies. In the present paper, research on how these constructs that are parts of the information processing in cognitive systems function in PTSD will be reviewed.Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) consists of a pattern of symptoms that include cognitive, affective, sensory and behavioral systems. In PTSD, the individual experiences disturbing emotions and sensations such as anxiety, panic, depression, anger, tension, high startle response and hyper-vigilance as a result of re-experiencing traumatic memories, flashbacks, attention difficulties, memory loss, nightmares and intrusive thoughts. To get rid of these emotions, he avoids all stimuli that remind the traumatic event. The cognitive approach asserts that cognitions play a triggering and maintaining role for these symptoms and tries to explain them with the information processing framework. According to this approach, the traumatic event that is experienced is processed differently from daily, ordinary events. This different information processing strategy stands out in attention, memory, dissociation, cognitive beliefs, cognition-affect processes and coping strategies. In the present paper, research on how these constructs that are parts of the information processing in cognitive systems function in PTSD will be reviewed