Appendix D

Psychological and Psychophysiological Stress Disorders

Respond to the following:
1. Stress can be the root cause of psychological disorders. Name four symptoms shared by acute and posttraumatic stress disorders. Reexperiencing the tramatic event, avoidance, reduced responsiveness, increased arousal, anxiety and guilt.
2. What life events are most likely to trigger a stress disorder? Wars, natural disasters, accidents, sexual assult, victim crimes, and terrorism. Basically any mentally tramatizing event.
3. Traumatic events do not always result in a diagnosable psychological disorder. What factors determine how a person may be affected by one such event? Biological processes,personailites, childhood experiences and social support systems are all factors as to wether a person develops a stress disorder.
4. What are the four stages in meeting the psychological needs of disaster victims? normalize peoples responses to the disaster, encourage expressions of anxiety, anger and frustration, teach self helping skills and provide referrals.
5. What is the link between personality styles and heart disease? A person with a type A personality style is more likely to be high strung, angry, overly driven, competitive, and cynical. These people give stress to their lives thus making themselves predispositioned for a heart attack. Type B personality people are laid back and less worried about the rushes of life. Those who fall in between these two types depending on their rate of stress their chances of developing heart disease vary.
6. List and briefly describe four psychological treatments for physical disorders.
Relaxation Training, reduces a persons feelings of anxiety, and relaxes their muscles in combination with medication.
Meditation, helps relieve physical distress. It helps to change the persons state of consciousness and allows them to ignore