Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy最新文献

Objective: The Takini/Survivor project examined factors promoting healing and resilience among women survivors of domestic violence in primarily South Dakota, with particular attention to American Indian/Native American (Native hereinafter) and rural experiences through the resilience portfolio model.

Method: Using a phenomenological design, this study explored the narratives of 31 Native women using semistructured qualitative interviews. When appropriate, the study also delineated between narratives of Native rural (10) and nonrural women (21).

Results: Participants described "poly-strengths" sequences in which environmental strengths (such as housing and transportation) enabled them to draw on their other strengths across resilience portfolio model domains. Rural participants emphasized how geographic isolation, limited mobility, and safety concerns in small communities constrained access to additional resources such as interpersonal supportive relationships. Survivors contextualized abuse within intergenerational trauma, drew on cultural identity and spirituality as distinct meaning-making pathways, and cited children/grandchildren and helping others as central purposes.

Conclusions: Healing occurs through reinforcing poly-strengths rather than isolated protective factors. Our findings contribute to resilience portfolio model by building on the importance of environmental strengths and how cultural identities create distinct resilience pathways. Implications include culturally responsive and supportive services, innovative service delivery in rural areas, and reforms to transportation policies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health concern due to its potential lifelong consequences to physical, mental, and cognitive and social function (Haarbauer-Krupa et al., 2021). Comprehensive data highlighting the multidimensional and dynamic processes that underlie personal strengths and psychosocial growth following TBI are lacking. This study identified key mechanisms of posttraumatic growth after TBI by qualitatively mapping categories of posttraumatic growth development and quantitatively examining their relationships with growth and rehabilitation outcomes.

Method: Individuals (N = 40) who received rehabilitation services for moderate-severe TBI completed subjective and objective assessments of global function and recovery, psychosocial health and coping strategies, and a free-response question about significant life changes following injury. Using a convergent parallel design, quantitative assessments were compared against categorical drivers of growth derived from content analysis.

Results: Qualitative analysis revealed five mechanism domains: presence of TBI sequelae; behavioral changes and goal-direct adaptations, changes in motivation and emotion, environmental and social contexts, contextual factors, and appraisal of themselves or from others. Joint assessment of data highlighted the role of event centrality, acceptance and active coping strategies, and contextual factors in the development of posttraumatic growth.

Conclusions: Results demonstrate the need to incorporate sociocognitive processes absent in rehabilitation frameworks to account for the scientific development of psychosocial growth and healing in the context of TBI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Firefighters are at an elevated risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared with the general population. The roles of traumatic stress versus individual's predisposition in PTSD development are unclear, and neuroimaging can help identify key brain regions. This study aimed to identify altered brain volumes and connectivity in firefighters with PTSD.

Method: We recruited 11 firefighters with PTSD, 12 firefighters without PTSD, and 25 age- and sex-matched male healthy controls. Participants completed clinical scales assessing depression, anxiety, perceived stress, job stress, somatic symptoms, sleep, suicidality, and alcohol use disorder. Magnetic resonance imaging scans, including brain anatomy and resting-state brain function, were conducted.

Results: Firefighters with PTSD showed higher depression and anxiety scores than those without PTSD. Volumetric analysis revealed a reduced gray matter volume in the right thalamus, which was subsequently used as a seed region for functional connectivity analysis. This analysis demonstrated that increased thalamic-prefrontal connectivity in firefighters was positively correlated with PTSD and depression scores.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that, in firefighters with PTSD, decreased thalamic volume and increased thalamocortical connectivity are closely associated with symptom severity. Depressive symptoms were the most crucial comorbid condition in terms of clinical symptoms and brain connectivity in firefighters with PTSD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: To explore and compare veteran and clinicians perspectives on veterans' strengths and ways strengths are used in care to promote engagement and recovery.

Method: We recruited veteran-clinician dyads from a rural Veterans Affairs Medical Center for qualitative interviews with veterans (n = 15) who had initiated a trauma-focused evidence-based psychotherapy (TF-EBP) with the dyad clinician (n = 8; some were interviewed about two veterans). They were interviewed about four types of veterans' strengths: coping skills, external supports, internal assets, and values/sources of meaning. We summarized and compared within-dyad responses.

Results: Both veterans and clinicians reported discussing strengths at least once, but they were often underutilized. Psychotherapy coping skills, internal assets, and values/sources of meaning were most commonly integrated into TF-EBPs. External supports and complementary coping skills (e.g., yoga, walking) were infrequently integrated. Differences were observed between veteran and clinician perspectives: (a) some veterans identified relationships as supportive that clinicians believed worsened TF-EBP engagement and posttraumatic stress disorder recovery, and (b) clinicians noted many internal assets that veterans did not see in themselves.

Conclusion: Veterans bring many strengths to posttraumatic stress disorder therapy, yet these are often underused. There is a need to develop resources and adjunctive interventions for integrating strengths into TF-EBP delivery and to implement family involvement in care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: This phenomenological study aimed to explore the experiences of Israeli women who were displaced from their communities because of the Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah war. Unlike most displacement and refugee studies, we focused on women from Western culture. Understanding their experiences may illuminate new, understudied aspects of women's displacement worldwide.

Method: The data were gathered through semistructured in-depth interviews with 15 women who were evacuated from northern Israel and analyzed in accordance with the phenomenological data analysis approach.

Results: The participants' experiences were organized into three major themes: vulnerability, reemergence, and a spiral movement between them. Experiences of vulnerability and reemergence were presented across personal, family, work, and environment domains.

Conclusions: The results were conceptualized in terms of the resilience cycle and anchoring. We suggest that the women move from the deterioration phase to the growth phase of the resilience cycle, with bidirectional movement between stages. A key factor directing movement between stages was the presence or absence of anchors in the woman's life. Implications for practice and policy, such as reinforcing relevant anchors in the women's lives, recognizing the complex nature of the resilience process, and developing comprehensive long-term assistance for displaced women, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Global public health emergencies occur regularly; therefore, understanding the experiences of often overlooked populations during the pandemic is necessary to promote better public health responses in the future. The present study investigated the factors influencing the mental health of adults of all ages who lived alone during the pandemic.

Method: Participants (n = 37) were asked about their mental health experiences over the course of the pandemic in eight focus groups that were conducted from November 2021 to April 2022. Participants lived across the United States, 51.3% were younger than 60 years old and 89.2% identified as female/woman. Coinvestigators coded the transcribed focus groups using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: Participants described the mental health impact of the pandemic in terms of negative feelings, positive feelings, and changes in emotions. Participants frequently described depression, loneliness, anxiety, anger/resentment, shock, guilt in doing well compared with others, and decline in mental health. They also described the causes of change in their mental health including societal, social, intrapersonal, and environmental factors, as well as worldview changes. Participants noted economic strain, social/political climate, changes in physical health, weather, and loss of feeling safe in the world, among other factors.

Conclusions: Results provide insight into the range of mental health experiences and the sources of mental health changes among individuals of all ages who lived alone. By tailoring interventions and outreach to single-person households, program developers and mental health providers can help mitigate the effects of isolation and encourage more adaptive responses during future public health emergencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: This study investigates the psychological mechanisms linking childhood trauma to adult violence tendencies in a nonclinical population, with a particular focus on the mediating role of dissociative symptoms and the moderating role of retroflection-a coping style characterized by internalized anger.

Method: A sample of 300 Turkish adults (aged 19-61) completed validated self-report measures, including the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Dissociative Experiences Scale, Violence Tendency Scale, and the Retroflection subscale of the Gestalt Contact Styles Scale-Revised.

Results: Using Hayes' PROCESS macro for regression analysis, results indicated that dissociation partially mediated the relationship between childhood trauma and violence tendency. Additionally, retroflection significantly moderated this relationship: The positive association between childhood trauma and violence tendency was stronger among individuals with lower retroflection levels.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that while dissociation may increase vulnerability to aggression following childhood trauma, retroflection may buffer this effect by suppressing externalized responses. The study highlights the importance of assessing dissociative coping and internalized anger in trauma-exposed individuals and offers implications for targeted prevention and intervention efforts in nonclinical settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Few psychometric tests can differentiate between feigned and genuine dissociative identity disorder (DID) symptoms. This study investigated whether using the Test of Memory Malingering Trial 1 (TOMM-1) and Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST) together versus independently improves the classification of simulated versus clinical DID symptoms.

Method: Data from 31 participants with clinically diagnosed DID (based on a semistructured interview) were compared with 51 college students instructed to simulate DID. Univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted to determine how well the TOMM-1 and M-FAST together versus independently could classify simulated versus clinical DID symptoms. Both empirically derived cutoffs and previously established cutoffs for these tests were analyzed.

Results: When used independently, the empirically derived TOMM-1 cutoff of ≤43 and M-FAST cutoff of ≥9 optimized sensitivity while maintaining ≥90% specificity. The previously established TOMM-1 cutoff of ≤41 upheld similar operating characteristics as the empirical cutoff. Conversely, the previously established M-FAST cutoff of ≥6 resulted in unacceptably low specificity, yielding a 39% false-positive rate. Multivariable analyses indicated that using the empirical TOMM-1 and M-FAST cutoffs together increased sensitivity (94%) while maintaining 90% specificity. Using the previously established cutoffs together versus independently slightly increased sensitivity (92%) and drastically increased specificity to 90%, reducing the false-positive rate from 39% to 10%.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that using the well-established TOMM-1 cutoff of ≤41 and M-FAST cutoff of ≥6 together versus independently can help detect feigned DID symptoms. Chaining multiple validity tests may therefore be a useful way to improve the detection of feigned symptoms in DID evaluations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Prior research has identified a link between potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) and moral injury, but there is a dearth of research into whether college students may also be at risk of developing moral injury. The present study examined whether PMIEs relate to moral injury among college students and if one type of PMIE (i.e., commission with agency, commission under duress, acts of omission, witnessing, and betrayal) was more salient in predicting moral injury among this population.

Method: Participants were 397 U.S.-based college students (63.2% White, non-Hispanic; 61.9% female; 55.2% first-year students) who endorsed exposure to one or more stressful experiences that went against their moral code or values and completed measures on PMIEs and moral injury.

Results: Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that betrayal, commission with agency, and acts of omission PMIEs were significantly and positively associated with moral injury total score and moral injury shame-related outcomes, while betrayal and commission under duress were uniquely and positively associated with moral injury trust violation-related outcomes. When a PMIE total score was included in the model, only betrayal remained statistically significantly associated with moral injury trust violation outcomes. The PMIE total score was positively associated with moral injury total score and moral injury shame-related outcomes.

Conclusions: These results suggest that college students may be at risk of developing moral injury after PMIE exposure and may benefit from interventions that target specific PMIEs to mitigate moral injury development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Guided by the ecological-resilience model (Panzeri et al., 2021), this study examined how individual, community, and societal resources interconnect to sustain resilience outcomes such as psychological distress and subjective well-being during later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Resilience was conceptualized as a dynamic, multilevel system of interdependent protective and risk factors operating across ecological layers.

Method: Psychological network analyses were conducted separately for two waves of data, encompassing indicators of resilience outcomes, individual strengths, community and social resources, and major life experiences. Network estimation and stability analyses were complemented by an inductive analysis of emergent clusters and pathways to interpret the structural patterns of resilience within the ecological framework.

Results: The networks demonstrated a stable and coherent organization across the two waves, with mental health challenges and well-being indicators emerging as the most prominent nodes and clusters of psychological strengths, social connectedness, community belonging, and contextual life experiences forming the surrounding structure.

Conclusions: Findings provide empirical support for the ecological-resilience model, demonstrating that adaptive functioning arises from the interplay among individual capacities, community relationships, and broader societal contexts. The inductive interpretation revealed distinct pathways linking personal and collective resources to resilience outcomes, highlighting that recovery and adaptation after adversity are sustained through dynamic, multilevel resource systems rather than isolated individual attributes. Taken together, these findings support an inside-out ecological organization of resilience, with the COVID-19 pandemic illuminating shifting tensions between individual and collective pathways and positioning resilience as a dynamic, multilevel process rather than a purely individual attribute. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).