Psychology

Question	Answer
Define developmental crisis and traumatic crisis	Developmental crisis – When you move from one phase to another. Moving away from home, having children, children moving out… Traumatic crisis - A sudden, unexpected and intense incident. An event which threatens essential aspects of life. E.g. Death of a close one, unemployment, accidents.
State and explain The Shock phase	The Shock phase takes place immediately after the traumatic event. The person is not able to comprehend the event and may even deny it. It may include Denial, emotional shutdown, feeling surreal and like an outsider, shouting, crying and panic. Person has difficulties to take in information. Even though the reactions during this phase may seem odd, they protect the psyche and give time to face what has happened. It can last from a couple of hours up to a few days.
State and explain The reaction phase	The reaction phase comes next. It when the people slowly faces the tragic incident and try to understand what it means. Balances between protecting and processing. Has very strong feelings- grief, anger despair. Has often strange and unexpected sensations in the beginning of the phase, like seeing or hearing the person who has just died. During this phase the incident is often in mind and might be triggered by a sound or smell. The phase may include fear and anxiety, self-accusations and the need to find someone to blame. It can cause insomnia and loss of appetite, tremor, nausea and other physical symptoms and lasts a couple of months.
State and explain The processing phase	The processing phase: The person begins to understand what has happened. Ready to phase different aspects of the incident and the new personal situation. Begins to think beyond the event but will not have strength to plan the future. Those who have lost someone close are ready to do the actual grief work. Something that takes a lot of energy. They need to talk a lot. IT may include problems with memory and concentration, irritability and withdrawal from social relationships.
State and explain The Reorientation phase	The Reorientation phase: The person is able to live with what has happened, the incident is no longer on his/hers mind all the time. The pain will come back from time to time, but there is also joy in life. The event becomes a significant part of life, but it will no longer control feelings and thoughts. It’s not a straightforward road from the different phases. Can jump back and forth. Might need professional help if stuck in phase 1-3. The normal length of the traumatic crisis approximately 1 year.
Define PTSD	Post-traumatic stress disorder. An anxiety triggered by a traumatic event.
Explain how you can get PTSD and why some people are more likely to get PTSD.	Personal experience of a trauma. Knowing a friend or relative that has experienced a trauma. Beeing a witness to an event. Children can get PTSD from being abused, watching violence in their family etc. Everyone goes through the traumatic crises, but for 3,5% it just gets worse and worse and they do not recover. * Inherited vulnerability to mental illnesses * Mental illness * The more severe and long-lasting trauma, the higher the risk for PTSD * Lack of social support
Explain why PTSD is more common among women than in men.	Women are more likely to be exposed to violence, rape etc. Men have more battle experience as a cause compared to women.
State two examples how to prevent PTSD.	Debriefing after a traumatic crisis Through support groups
State two examples how to treat PTSD.	Through psychological treatment and medical drugs.
Describe how the stress system works. (alarm, fight/flight/freeze, recovery)	Adrenaline is sent from the adrenal gland into the blood-stream. This causes the heart to start pumping faster which supplies the muscles with more blood(oxygen) This causes an energy rush. All the ATP stored in the muscles is released increasing the flexibility, speed and movements to the limit. We cannot fight our stress system. And when it looks like this it is not dangerous. First, something triggers our stress system. This is called a stressor. They can be physical stressors (noise, malnutrition, heat, and cold), social stressors (relations, conflicts, loneliness, work situation) and psychological stressors (your own thoughts and emotions, your own demands and expectations). They send out stress hormones in your body, which makes it full alert. Our system is built so that we flee, fight or freeze. Afterwards our bodies are exhausted, since the stress system uses a lot of our energy. And it comes into a state of recovery. Our stress is not built for this society, something that leads to high levels of stress hormones. And too much stress for too long injures our bodies.
State three stress hormones	Adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisole
Give two examples of how the body react to stress hormones	Higher blood pressure and can lead to increased levels of blood sugar. Heart pumps faster,
Explain in short why the stress system can be useful in the short run but not in the long run.	It helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. Cortisol is one of our stress hormones and is really bad to our body. If we then have this poison in our system to long it will give bad effects to the body. But for a short while the cortisol is very useful.
Define stress in two ways. (Steptoe and Stress cross)	CROSS!!! Positive stress>negative stress. Upper left corner is for things you do that you don’t like. Upper right corner is for things you do that you like. Lower left corner is when you don’t do anything and don’t like it. (Lonely, unemployed, sick) Lower right corner is when you don’t do anything and you like it. (Meditation mental training) You should try to stay in the corners with positive stress. You have to get in to the lower right corner at least once/day to recover. Steptoe’s definition of stress is: “Stress responses are said to arise when demands exceed the personal and social resources that the individual is able to mobilise” (1997)
Define stressor and the three different types of stressors.	A stressor is something that triggers the stress system. There are three different types of stressors; Physical stressors (noise, malnutrition, heat, and cold). Social stressors (relations, conflicts, loneliness, work situation). Psychological stressors (your own thoughts and emotions, your own demands and expectations).
Give one real-life example of each type of stressor.	You’re fighting with your best friend. A social stressor. You hear someone tapping their foot during the lesson. A physical stressor. You have a test this Friday and you really don’t want to fail, so you become stressed. A psychological stressor.
What effects has stress? Give example of two biological, two cognitive and two social effects of stress.	Biological- affecting the immune system in a negative way, increased blood pressure. Cognitive- affects memory and concentration. Social- conflict and loss of communication skills.
Explain how the two centres of decision-making and planning in the brain are linked to stress reactions.	The left frontal lobe shuts down the stress system. The right frontal lobe triggers the stress system. It’s hard to control.
Give examples of good and bad stress coping strategies	Bad: Brooding, negative avoidance, and denial  increased stress in the long run. Good: Problem focused strategies-deal with the causes of stress. Emotion-focused strategies – deal with the effects of stress. Change you patterns of thought= quit things you don’t like, find motivation/inspiration. Distraction. Relaxation.
Explain WHY the stress coping strategies they are good or bad. (link to the knowledge about left and right frontal lobe)	The left frontal lobe focuses on the positive thoughts and feelings of enthusiasm, interest, curiosity and joy. With distraction, you can avoid thinking of the things you’re stressed about and do things you like instead, since the left frontal lobe shuts down the stress system. This is what you can do with the Emotion-focused strategies as well. Also when you Change you patterns of thought= quit things you don’t like, find motivation/inspiration. The right frontal lobe focuses on the negative thoughts and feeling like fear, anger, irritation, sadness, depression. It triggers the stress system. When you brood, use negative avoidance and are in denial you think negatively and have bad feelings. Thus increasing the stress you already have.
How can stress be reduced?	Control- by thinking you are in control, that you can influence things happening to you, the stress decreases. Too much control increases your stress level because you feel under pressure and at loss of freedom. Hardiness (the three c’s) Control: If you think you have control, that can influence things that happen to you. The strongest protection from negative stress. Commitment- being dedicated to something, believing that what you do is important. Challenge- If you see demands as challenges/opportunities, and not as threats. Coping self-efficacy- Believing in that we can deal with the demands, we can cope the stressors. If we believe we have the skills/resources to deal with the situation. Previous successes in similar situations increase self-efficacy, while failures decrease it. It can also increase from observing other succeed (social learning theory) and by social encouragement from others. Optimism- Beliefs about things are going to turn out. New research support that optimistic expectations are linked to less infectious illnesses and also longer life. Stress coping strategies- Problem focusing strategies – deal with the causes of stress -‘’- - deal with the effects of stress Change your pattern of thoughts Distraction Relaxation

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