Video Description
Clinical psychologist Emma Smith explains what post traumatic stress disorder means and why some people’s experience of traumatic events is not processed in the same way as other memories. Chelsea Psychology Clinic are a group of London psychologists and psychiatrists offering private psychological therapy and psychiatry treatment from their premises across central London and Chelsea. The private therapy sessions cover the following areas: – Acceptance & Commitment Therapy – Cognitive Analytic Therapy – Cognitive-behavioural Therapy – Couples Therapy – Dialectical-behaviour Therapy – Mentalisation Based Treatment – Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy – Schema Therapy https://www.thechelseapsychologyclinic.com
Video Transcription
PTSD is a reaction to a traumatic life event. We can think of the mind a bit like a factory, and the aim of this factory is to turn the experiences into memories. And when ordinary life events are kind of coming into the factory, they’re being processed and they’re getting laid down in our memories. When we experience a trauma, this is too much for the factory to handle. It’s completely overwhelming, so it doesn’t actually go through the normal process and end up in our memory. So when we get triggered and experience the memory, it’s more like it’s happening here and now. It’s not processed in the same way that our other memories are, and that’s when people can get the symptoms of PTSD, like flashbacks and nightmares. And when people actually have those symptoms, it’s like the trauma is happening here and now.
