Day One of My Captivity

OK, maybe my title doesn't reflect the most positive attitude. . :-)

True to my word, I did spend the better part of today getting started on the book, carefully reading a stack of articles that I needed to wrap my head around before I could start writing and revising the 1st edition. In practical terms, what that meant was reading very long articles with sentences like this

A basic model of PTSD neurobiology
The biological perturbations observed in patients suffering from PTSD are numerous, and likely reflect an enduring dysregulation of multiple stress-mediating systems that occurs as a result of a psychological "shock." These pathophysiological perturbations presumably occur in patients with genetic, epigenetic, and experiential predispositions when exposed to certain extreme conditions.....

Got it? I think you see what I mean. (PTSD=posttraumatic stress disorder)

Actually, the stuff I was reading was really important, but the writing was so cumbersome that it took approximately a billion hours to read. The boredom factor had something to do with how amazingly easy it was to get pulled off task. I was right to dread this part, and did manage to muddle through--at least today's stack. I had to keep reminding myself that this was also part of "writing," even though I didn't actually write much today.

Nevertheless, I learned some really important things today.

1) I read, in detail, about a variable called "centrality." I stumbled on it when reviewing an article for Psychological Trauma. Centrality refers to whether a traumatic event becomes a defining point in someone's life. Some of the questions that assess centrality are as follows:

• "My life story can be divided into two main chapters: one is before and one is after this event happened."
• "This event has become a reference point for the way I understand new experiences."
• "I believe that people who haven't experienced this type of event think differently than I do."

The more central the event was to someone's identity and their thoughts about who they were, the more likely they were to have PTSD symptoms. The applications for this are huge. I know I'll be making some new presentation slides about this one.

2) In the articles on the neurobiology of trauma, I learned about some of the new brain-imaging research, which specifically suggests some new possible treatments for reversing the "chemical cascade" that accompanies traumatic events. The implications for that are also huge. We can't prevent people from experiencing traumatic things. They are part of living in this world. But wouldn't it be great if we could keep those events from causing so much long-term damage?

So this topic is definitely worth my time. And I'm also sure that as I get further into this topic, I'll stop my kvetching. But for now it's nice to have someone to complain to.

Thanks for listening.