Tsunami Impact on Holocaust Survivors: Activation of Early Trauma

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Tsunami Impact on Holocaust Survivors Activation
of Early Trauma

• Katarzyna Prot

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criterion A for PTSD

• The person has been exposed to a traumatic event
  in which both of the following were present
• the person experienced, witnessed, or was
  confronted with an event or events that involved
  actual or threatened death or serious injury, or
  a threat to the physical integrity of self or
  others
• the persons response involved intense fear,
  helplessness, or horror.

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Conclusions

• The experience of trauma leads to
  identification on a deep, unconscious level with
  people who have experienced similar trauma

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Conclusions

• Individuals who do not remember their
  traumatic experiences respond with PTSD symptoms,
  i.e., sleeping problems, increased tension and
  flashbacks, to situations which resemble their
  own forgotten trauma

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Conclusions

• Symptoms of PTSD and their reactivation are
  relatively infrequent diagnosed in individuals
  who were traumatised in early childhood and do
  not remember the facts relating to the traumatic
  event. In the cases presented above proper
  diagnosis was possible because the patients were
  in psychotherapy when their symptoms emerged.