Túlkunarferli og tengsl þeirra við þróun áfallastreituröskunar og félagsfælni

It is not what happens to you that can lead to psychological problems, but how you appraise or make sense of the experience. We explored the relationship between posttraumatic appraisal processes and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) after experiencing life threat, social threat or both types of threat among women with a trauma history (n = 113). We compared a group of women who either met criteria for PTSD or clinically significant PTSD symptoms (PTSS group), to a group that had little or no PTSS (control group). Results showed that the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) discriminates well between individuals who developed PTSS and SAD from those who did not, regardless of threat type. We found that appraising the self as flawed in some way and that others are likely to humiliate or reject were the most important appraisal processes in the development of PTSD and SAD symptoms. We conclude that when individuals interpret social threat and/or life threat in such a way that they must be fundamentally flawed and that others are likely to humiliate or reject them, PTSD and SAD symptoms are likely to develop, and that often the reaction to such threat could be described as an integrated condition of both PTSD and SAD rather than suffering from two separate disorders. These findings may have important implications for theoretical models of these disorders and for treatment