The Virtues of Vulnerability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Rushing
Keyword(s):  
Patient Autonomy ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
The Body ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Democratic Citizen ◽  
Ethical Disposition ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
And Control

There are many locations, relationships, and experiences through which we learn what it means to be a citizen. Contemporary healthcare—or “the clinic”—is one of those sites. Being drawn into the complex “medical-legal-policy-insurance nexus” as a patient entails all sorts of learning, including, it is argued here, political learning. When we are subjected as a patient, frequently through a discourse of “choice and control,” or “patient autonomy,” what do we learn? What happens when the promise of a certain kind of autonomy is accompanied by demands for a certain kind of humility? What do we learn about agency and self-determination, as well as trust, self-knowledge, dependence, and resistance under such conditions of acute vulnerability? This book explores these questions on a journey through medicalized encounters with giving birth, navigating death and dying, and seeking treatment for life-altering mental illness (here post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans). While the body has always posed a problem for Western thought, and has been treated as an obstacle to freedom and independence and something our rational capacity must master and control, this book aims to counter that intellectual-historical and political tendency by asking how we might reimagine the political potential of embodiment, or make space for considering “the virtues of vulnerability.” In particular, the book offers a novel conception of democratic citizen-subjectivity, grounded in an ethical disposition of humility-informed-relational-autonomy.

Stress management: Corpus-based insights into vernacular interpretations of stress

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
Laurel Smith Stvan
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
American English ◽  
Physical Symptom ◽  
The Body ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Semantic Shift

Examination of the term stress in naturally occurring vernacular prose provides evidence of three separate senses being conflated. A corpus analysis of 818 instances of stress from non-academic texts in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus of American Discourses on Health (CADOH) shows a negative prosody for stress, which is portrayed variously as a source outside the body, a physical symptom within the body and an emotional state. The data show that contemporary speakers intermingle the three senses, making more difficult a discussion between doctors and patients of ways to ‘reduce stress’, when stress might be interpreted as a stressor, a symptom, or state of anxiety. This conflation of senses reinforces the impression that stress is pervasive and increasing. In addition, a semantic shift is also refining a new sense for stress, as post-traumatic stress develops as a specific subtype of emotional stress whose use has increased in circulation in the past 20 years.

102 Single-Prolonged Stress as a Model of PTSD in Mice: Effects on Sleep and Anxiety

SLEEP ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. A42-A42
Author(s):  
Katelyn Gutowsky ◽  
Carolyn Jones ◽  
Miranda Lim
Keyword(s):  
Rem Sleep ◽  
Sleep Disturbances ◽  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Power Spectra ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Sleep State ◽  
Single Prolonged Stress ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
And Control ◽  
Prolonged Stress

Abstract Introduction Sleep problems are common in humans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is involved in processing emotional memories; it is often disrupted in those with PTSD, and may be related to increased anxiety. Single prolonged stress (SPS) is a protocol used to model PTSD in rats, however little is known about how this model impacts sleep in mice. Prior research suggests SPS produces short term disturbances in REM sleep and increases in anxiety-like behavior, but further validation of this model is needed to understand how SPS impacts sleep and anxiety-like behaviors in mice specifically, as they have greater potential for transgenic manipulation Methods C57BL6/J mice underwent a SPS protocol in which they were tube-restrained for 2 hours, followed by a 15 minute forced swim in a group, ether exposure until loss of consciousness, and 10 days of social isolation. Following SPS, mice were tested for anxiety-like behavior in a light-dark box and sleep was measured from surgically implanted EEG and EMG leads. Time spent in wake, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep was quantified for 24 continuous hours in SPS and Control mice. Results There were no significant effects of SPS on the amount of time spent in any vigilance state, or in sleep-wake transitions. However, SPS-exposed mice showed significantly more anxiety-like behavior. EEG power spectra were analyzed in relevant frequency bands during each sleep state, and exploratory analyses were conducted Conclusion Minimal effects on sleep macroarchitecture were seen in mice 10 days after SPS. It is possible that sleep disturbances seen immediately after trauma exposure (such as in prior studies in rats) may have diminished over time. Further studies will need to include additional timepoints and analysis of sleep microarchitecture following SPS, and in other mouse models of PTSD, in order to more comprehensively examine changes in sleep. Support (if any) VA CDA #IK2 BX002712, Portland VA Research Foundation, Medical Research Foundation

War-Worn Subjects

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Sara Rushing
Keyword(s):  
Veterans Health Administration ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Veterans Health ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Wounded Warriors ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

This chapter explores how humility and autonomy come into play for “wounded warriors” seeking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment and for the medical professionals treating them within the particular constraints of the military-medical complex. Analyzing military PTSD illustrates how deeply entangled disease construction, diagnosis, and “cure” are with the complex discourse of “choice and control,” or with medicalization under the pressures of neoliberal rationality. Like with birth and death, but perhaps even more so, veteran PTSD as taken up within the Veterans Health Administration is a site of subjection and potential contestation from which we can learn much about the production of citizen-subjectivity in moments of distinct corporeal and psychic vulnerability. This chapter examines how militarism and masculinity conspire with inadequate conceptions of patient (and doctor) humility and autonomy, to produce an assumption of and fatalism about whether “wounded warriors” can be “fixed.”

The Role of Glucocorticoids in the (Mal)adaptive Response to Traumatic Experience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hagit Cohen ◽  
Joseph Zohar
Keyword(s):  
Stress Responses ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
The Body ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Memory Integration ◽  
Response To Stress ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Basic Facts

Glucocorticoids (GCs) play a major role in orchestrating the complex physiological and behavioral reactions essential for the maintenance of homeostasis. These compounds enable the organism to prepare for, respond to, and cope with the acute demands of physical and emotional stressors and enable a faster recovery with passage of the threat. A timely and an appropriate GC release commensurate with stressor severity enables the body to properly contain stress responses so as to promote recovery by rapidly restoring homeostasis. Inadequate GC release following stress not only delays recovery by disrupting biological homeostasis but can also interfere with the processing or interpretation of stressful information that results in long-term disruptions in memory integration. A salient example of such an impaired post-traumatic process is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings from recent animal models and translational and clinical neuroendocrine studies summarized in this chapter provide insights shedding light on the apparently contradictory studies of the HPA-axis response to stress. Also included is a review of the basic facts about PTSD and biological data.

Written by the Body: Evolutions of Embodiment in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

MELUS ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-174
Author(s):  
Audrey Ng
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Female Subjectivity ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Woman Warrior ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
The Woman Warrior

Abstract While much has been written on embodiment and autobiographical narrative strategies in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior (1975), little critical attention has been given to these aspects in her latest foray into poetry, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (2011). The materiality of bodies in her characters No Name Woman and Fa Mu Lan are altered across the two works in ways that reflect and engender a change in cultural necessities for peace. The female avenger's body evolves from a weapon that addresses wrongs through violence to the embodiment of Kingston's striving for a happy ending, on the page and also in reality, thus implicating her work with war veterans. No Name Woman's suicide changes from an embodiment of vengeful female subjectivity that is concomitant with biological destiny to an occasion of communal reconciliation. In tandem, Kingston's reappropriation of her portrayal of the swordswoman Fa Mu Lan in The Woman Warrior shows a progression from a soldier's aggressive filiality to patriarchal norms to a woman's act of self-violence that addresses the reality of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalent among war veterans. If life writing, as narrative psychologist Jerome Bruner argues, is capable of constituting identity and shaping future reality, Kingston's work of intersubjective remembering and community building through autobiographical narratives that constantly position the body at the intersection of public and personal identities has positive implications for her peace project.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Pathobiochemical Changes in Major Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
pp. 729-736
Author(s):  
Konstantin N. Stupin ◽  
Mikhail Y. Zenko ◽  
Elena A. Rybnikova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
The Body ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Subcortical Structures ◽  
Significant Similarity ◽  
Neuroendocrine Mechanisms ◽  
Post Traumatic

Abstract Comparative analysis of available literature data on the pathogenetic neuroendocrine mechanisms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is provided in this review to identify their common features and differences. We discuss the multidirectional modifications of the activity of cortical and subcortical structures of the brain, levels of neurotransmitters and their receptors, and functions of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in depression and PTSD. The analysis shows that these disorders are examples of opposite failures in the system of adaptive stress response of the body to stressful psychotraumatic events. On this basis, it is concluded that the currently widespread use of similar approaches to treat these disorders is not justified, despite the significant similarity of their anxiety-depressive symptoms; development of differential therapeutic strategies is required.

scholarly journals Dynamics of hematological parameters in rabbits for osteosubstitution by hydroxyapatite ceramics doped with germanium and in complex with blood coagulation activator

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (102) ◽  
pp. 78-86
Author(s):  
T. P. Todosiuk ◽  
M. V. Rublenko ◽  
V. M. Vlasenko
Keyword(s):  
Blood Coagulation ◽  
Hematological Parameters ◽  
The Body ◽  
Hematological Indices ◽  
Reparative Osteogenesis ◽  
Hydroxyapatite Ceramics ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Intensive Course ◽  
And Control ◽  
Experimental Group

Bone tissue has powerful regenerative properties, thanks to which, with stable fixation, quite large amounts of skeletal bone damage can be successfully repaired. However, in the case of fragmentary fractures, the use of osteosynthesis methods alone does not always ensure the optimal course of reparative regeneration, as its regenerative potential is lost. Therefore, there is a need to replace post-traumatic bone defects and stimulate reparative osteogenesis. For this purpose, doped or doped with various elements (Ge, Si, Zn, Ag, Cu) composite materials. The aim of the study was to investigate the dynamics of hematological parameters in rabbits for osteosubstitution by hydroxyapatite ceramics doped with germanium and in combination with a blood clotting activator. Model defects were formed in the radial diaphysis and femur metaphysis in rabbits with a 3 mm and 4.2 mm diameter drill bit, respectively. Anesthesia included acepromazine, thiopenate, and lidocaine infiltration anesthesia. Animals of the first experimental group (n = 12) were replaced by defects with granules of hydroxyapatite ceramics doped with germanium (HTGe), the second (n = 12) – hydroxyapatite ceramics doped with germanium with blood coagulation activator (HTGe + a), the third – (n = 12). hydroxyapatite α + β with active (α + β + a), and control – granules of undoped ceramics (HT). On day 7, animals of all groups had minor post-traumatic erythrocytopenia and oligochromemia. There was also a gradual increase in the content of leukocytes in the blood with a peak on the 14th day, which in the group HTGe + a lasted until the 30th day. The increase in the number of leukocytes and their peak values occurred within the physiological norm and only approached its upper limit. In most groups there was a pronounced thrombocytosis during the first 14 days with normalization to the 30th day, but in the 2nd experimental group the number of platelets returned to normal only on the 60th day. Changes in most integral hematological indices, which reflect the relationship between blood cell populations, are characteristic of the inflammatory-resorptive phase of reparative osteogenesis. The dynamics of hematological parameters indicates the absence of a pronounced reaction of the body to the implantation of hydroxyapatite composite doped with germanium. The combination of hydroxyapatite ceramics doped with germanium with coagulation activator eliminates post-traumatic oligochromemia and erythrocytopenia and significantly increases the level of hematological integral indices, which indicates a more intensive course of inflammatory-resorptive clinical resorptive aparation phase.

scholarly journals Identification of DNA Methylation Changes That Predict Onset of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Following Physical Trauma

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina A. Martin ◽  
Rany Vorn ◽  
Martin Schrieber ◽  
Chen Lai ◽  
Sijung Yun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Physical Trauma ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
And Control

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are commonly experienced after exposure to highly stressful events, including physical trauma, yet, biological predictors remain elusive. Methylation of DNA may provide key insights, as it likely is reflective of factors that may increase the risk in trauma patients, as DNA methylation is altered by previous stressors. Here, we compared DNA methylation patterns using bisulfite sequencing in patients with a physical trauma that required more than a 24-h hospitalization (n = 33). We then compared DNA methylation in patients who developed and compared the following groups (1) PTSD and MDD; n = 12), (2) MDD (patients with MDD only; n = 12), and (3) control (patients who did not have PTSD or MDD; n = 9), determined by the PTSD Checklist (PCL-5) and Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS) at 6-months follow-up. We identified 17 genes with hypermethylated cytosine sites and 2 genes with hypomethylated sites in comparison between PTSD and control group. In comparison between MDD and control group, we identified 12 genes with hypermethylated cytosine sites and 6 genes with hypomethylated sites. Demethylation of these genes altered the CREB signaling pathway in neurons and may represent a promising therapeutic development target for PTSD and MDD. Our findings suggest that epigenetic changes in these gene regions potentially relate to the onset and symptomology of PTSD and MDD and could be used as potential biomarkers in predicting the onset of PTSD or MDD following traumatic events.

The Political Aesthetics of the Body of the Soldier in Pain

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-73
Author(s):  
Federica Caso
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Political Aesthetics ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship

This chapter explores the recent work of Australian artist Ben Quilty on combat fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) collected in the exhibition After Afghanistan. After Afghanistan presents a series of large-scale paintings of soldiers and veterans evoking the bodily imprints of combat fatigue and PTSD. The bodies are naked, in the grasp of sensations and emotions. The chapter argues that this work has an ambivalent relationship to militarisation, whereby it proposes an alternative iconography of the modern soldier which seeds transformative potentials against the militarisation of the body; simultaneously, however, the iconography of the body of the soldier in pain has been co-opted as a militarising technology that silences opposition and contestation to war in the name of compassion towards the soldiers.

Trauma in the Theater of the Body

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Biehl
Keyword(s):  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
The Body ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Body Consciousness ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Post Traumatic

In this chapter, the author talks about his teaching of somatic yoga for relief of trauma, supporting this with current research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and including parts of his own story with PTSD. He has been practicing yoga since 1992 and expands his bodily pursuits through an active intellectual life. Here he offers an in-depth discussion based on research and his personal experience of the role of body consciousness in trauma and traumatic illnesses. He explores various ways to develop conscious embodiment in focused, restorative, and ultimately safe ways through engagement of the wisdom of the natural body and thereby to recover and potentially heal from traumatic stress and illness. In conclusion, he emphasizes that simple somatic methods anchored on breath and movement with mindfulness make it possible to heal traumatic illness and can provide immediate relief to experiences of both acute and chronic distress.

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