Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Female Adolescent Trauma Survivors Worldviews: Is This A Defining Moment In My Life Or Does This Moment Now Define My Life?, Carey Lynn Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

What is your life experience? Do you feel you have taken an active role in your life experiences or do you feel as though life "just happens to you"? Trauma is an event that comes into one's life, without invitation, and can alter the meaning and value of every event thereafter. Many times, exposure to trauma can leave one feeling like he or she is a passive participant in life and that his or her efforts are fruitless.

This researcher tapped into the worldview of sixteen adolescent trauma survivors by conducting qualitative interviews to gain an understanding of how their …

Heart Rate Variability As A Moderator Of Trauma Writing Outcomes, Alison Eonta

Theses and Dissertations

Writing about personal traumatic experiences is associated with beneficial effects on physical and psychological symptoms compared with writing about emotionally neutral events. However, not everyone benefits from trauma writing to the same extent. The present study hypothesized that the effectiveness of trauma writing may be moderated by emotion regulation, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Research also shows that greater physiological reactivity is predictive of better trauma writing outcomes. Given the importance of physiological output in emotional processing, response training was developed and found to increase appropriate physiological reactivity. Because higher RSA is thought to indicate a more flexible …