title: Reliving and disorganization in posttraumatic stress disorder and panic disorder memories.
abstract: Intense, disorganized recollections are one of the core symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and considered to be the result of inadequate processing of trauma information. A first panic attack resembles trauma in being an unexpected frightening and subjectively life-threatening event, and like PTSD, panic disorder with agoraphobia also involves fear conditioning after the first event. Therefore, a panic attack may be processed similarly to a trauma, and as a result, memories of a panic attack may share characteristics like reliving and disorganization with PTSD trauma memories. To test this hypothesis, scripts of PTSD trauma memories (n = 21) were compared with scripts of panic disorder with agoraphobia panic memories (n = 25) using a narrative rating scale. No differences were found between reliving intensity and disorganization levels in the scripts of both patient groups. The results suggest a panic attack may affect information processing similarly to a traumatic event.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical, Health, and Neuropsychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. mhagenaars@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
authors.forename: Muriel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Hagenaars
authors.forename: Agnes
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Minnen
authors.forename: Kees A L
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Hoogduin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology