Great. Let's make a start. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
My name's Kathy Creswell. I'm from the departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry here at the University of Oxford.
And I'm really delighted to be hosting this series, which is hosted by the Department of Experimental Psychology.
We're on our mental wellness.
We've had a really great series of talks so far, and I'm delighted to introduce this one, which is focussed on coping with trauma.
So just to tell you a little bit about how this all works, we'll have about 15 or 20 minutes talk, first of all,
and then we're going to open up for a panel discussion because of the nature of the subjects that we're talking about,
because we know there are a lot of questions and because we record and share this on YouTube, we don't have a live question answer session.
So many thanks to those of you who've submitted questions in advance.
We've collated those and pulled them together into themes that we'll be presenting to our panel.
We'll be finishing at about quarter to eleven. And we deliberately leave it as 15 minutes to the hour.
So there's a bit of time at the end, hopefully, for you to have a bit of a break before your next appointment or activity starts up,
because obviously the issues that we are covering in this series, we understand,
may raise difficulties for some people and give people lots to think about.
So we want to give you a chance to take a bit of time, encourage you to give yourself a bit of a break,
go for a bit of a walk or whatever would be helpful for you just to give yourself a little bit of time at the end of the session.
Before we start, I also just want to highlight that we've had previous talks on some fantastic topics,
including overcoming stress and anxiety, overcoming depression and low mood, overcoming problems with sleep and also with eating.
So please do have a look at the Department of Experimental Psychology website or our YouTube channel,
where you can watch back those talks, which have all been really, really useful and interesting sessions.
And we also have another tool coming up shortly, which is focussed on overcoming paranoia,
which will be led by Dan Freeman from the Department of Psychiatry.
So please do so. Join us for that one.
But without further ado, I'm really delighted to introduce Professor Anker, LSD from the Department of Experimental Psychology.
Anchor is professor of Experimental Psychopathology and the Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow here,
and is also co-director of the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.
Thanks ever so much for joining us today, anchor. Thank you very much, Kathy.
Will your introduction and thanks everybody for joining us today.
I'll quickly go to share my screen. And.
Yes, so my topic is coping with trauma. But let's first look at what what do what do we understand what a trauma is in everyday language?
We use of a broad definition of I don't talk about upsetting events, such as losing a job,
failing a exam or a divorce as potentially as traumatic and met in medical science of trauma often refers to a physical injury.
What I'm going to talk about is slightly different. It's a kind of narrower definition of upsetting events that cause a psychological trauma.
And those traumas are extremely threatening events.
So it can be a series of repeated events that often involve the threat to one owns one's own life or physical integrity or that of other people.
And examples would be interpersonal violence, such as assault, torture and so on,
severe accidents, natural and manmade disasters or war zone experience.
But it's very broad. What what type of events that that's can can be called trauma because they involve the spread to life or physical integrity.
And what is really important to highlight here is that what matters is the subjective experience at that time.
So even people who are in the in the same event differ in whether they experience the event as a trauma.
And to give you an example. And so let's say somebody is threatened with a toy gun in a mugging or something like that.
And if the person at the time believes that's a real gun and they are about to be shot,
this could be a psychological trauma, even though they might find out shortly afterwards that it was just a toy gun.
So whether it's subjectively perceived as a threat to life or physical integrity.
So my next question is, how common is this type of excrete appearance?
And we have a quick poll prepared for you to get your opinion.
Well, how many people do you think have experienced such an event in their lifetime?
Thank you very much. The results coming in now, so so we we can see that most of you estimated between 30 and 60 percent.
That's a very good guess. It is a common experience.
And some of the second largest guess was between 60 and 90 percent.
So. So you are very much on target. It is actually, even though these are extreme events.
They are actually common. And if we are now go to two.
Oh, my. Next. Next slide. Then we we can sew it.
I can't. So hopefully you see that.
See, you know, some examples from from recent events that were reported widely in the media.
So you from accidents, from fire, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and so on are very common.
And the research actually shows that most people will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime.
For example, a large study recently contacted by the World Health Organisation interviewed
nearly 70000 people in 24 countries and 70 percent in the studies reported trauma.
And actually, on average, it was three traumas per person. The most common events reported were in this survey were unexpected death of
a loved one or witnessing happen to other people and road traffic accidents.
How do people respond to trauma? What happens in the aftermath?
There is a set of typical symptoms and this is one of the reasons why the definition of trauma in psychology and psychiatry is quite,
quite and has been narrowed down.
But amongst the most common symptoms after such events are re experiencing symptoms where people experience moments from the event memories,
dreams or just the emotions of body sensations from the trauma as if they are ever happening again right now.
So people that may have pictures from the event popping into their mind or they may dream about them.
And amongst body sensations, they experience could be that like the heart racing or death, the physiological responses during the event.
And it really feels as if the trauma is happening now. And if you have such unpleasant memories of the event that are highly distressing,
it is very understandable that people will go out of their way to avoid reminders of the event.
This could be similar situations like going to the site of the event.
People who were involved or even thinking or talking about the event is extremely distressing and therefore is avoided very commonly.
And finally, there's many symptoms of being in a state of high alert, being on edge,
looking out for danger, being easily started with also difficulty sleeping and concentrating.
And that's very understandable after an upsetting event such as the ones I described.
And what is important to emphasise here that these symptoms are entirely normal after a traumatic event.
And most people will have some re experiencing symptoms soon after the event and some avoidance and some might how arise?
That doesn't mean necessarily that this is a clinical condition developing.
It's just a normal response to an abnormal situation.
But for some people, it can become a more chronic problem that they have these kinds of symptoms.
And this is what we then call post-traumatic stress disorder.
And this disorder is characterised by exactly the same symptoms that everybody would
experience and also offer negative thoughts about the self or feeling quite numb,
being losing interest and things people used to enjoy and having lots of negative emotion,
including sadness, anger, feeling guilty or ashamed and so on.
But none of that immediately after the trauma is is is is a cause of concern, because as you will see on my next slide,
that people are often resilient and recover from these symptoms on their own devices.
And a slide from the same study, study that I just mentioned from the World Health Organisation.
And people were answering questions of how long after the event their symptoms persisted and what you can see.
And the plot just highlights different types of trauma. So let's just look at the overall picture.
You can see that in the first year. And what's plotted here is years after the traumas in the first year, we see a really very steep recovery.
So so quite of lot of people, 25 to 40 percent,
will fully recover from the PTSD symptoms in the first year after the trauma and even after that recovery is still ongoing.
You see a one as one group where whether the recovery takes longer.
And this is from was on related trauma. So, so but for all other traumas, it's quite a fast recovery in the first year.
So this now raises the question so.
So if we see that many of these symptoms are quite normal after the event, it's an abnormal event and we react to that.
We have to readjust our lives after having feelings like this.
And many people will recover on their own.
So what do we know about what helps recovery so that we that what prevents people from being stuck in this recovery process,
which is while we understand developing PTSD? So one big factor there is support from family, friends and colleagues.
So if we have support from other people that are close to us, that care about us, that that will be helpful.
Also generally looking after ourselves, self care.
So really watching out to eat eat well after an event like this, to not use substances excessively, not to let not drink too much alcohol and so on.
Get some exercise and also generally be kind to yourself.
And don't don't feel you have to really back to and be back to normal in a few days.
This isn't a very upsetting event that shakes people up and.
And we won't be able to overcome it in a day.
But as if we let the natural recovery with the support of our friends and colleagues and and family take place,
then then then we have a good chance of recovering. The other tip I would give from our clinical work on post-traumatic stress disorder.
That often people who end up having a post-traumatic stress disorder give up a lot of activities that were important to them before and they enjoyed.
And that could be a direct effect of the trauma. Let's say they were injured and can't do certain activities.
But even then, if the injuries are healed and they can could resume this active often, then don't quite get around to doing this.
And so what one of advice I would give is step by step, trying to reclaim activities that bring meaning and enjoyment to our lives.
And even if one might not feel like this immediately after an event, you might feel, oh, it's it's there's no point to it.
I really getting back into a daily routine where this is a part and this may need to do involves finding some alternatives.
If if you can't do certain things any longer after trauma.
So for so for instance, let's say somebody has a leg injury and can't play football any longer.
They may still be able to do some form of exercise, like go to the gym or go swimming and so on,
that that really ticks the same box in in and bringing meaning and enjoyment to their lives.
That's obviously easier said than done. But so it takes a little bit of a decision to get going again with these activities.
But we find them extremely helpful. The other point I wanted to consider is what gets in the way we weigh in the way of recovery.
So how do some people get stuck and develop PTSD after trauma?
And one thing I wanted to mention is that people can get stuck in vert,
vicious cycles between the threat that they've taken from the trauma threatening meanings of the trauma.
And it's and and also its aftermath, including the symptoms of PTSD themselves.
So I will give some examples in a minute. And the second is, when you have one, you feel that trauma is still posing a threat in your life.
So let's say you feel you're going to be attacked again. You will take measures to prevent this.
And and the crux here is that some of these very understandable strategies
that people take to control the threat they are now perceiving in their life,
too, will actually backfire and either increase symptoms or or maintain the problems or so that you kind of keep stuck in this vicious circle.
And as an odd way to introduce us, I just wanted you to do a little experiment with me for just a short moment.
So if in the next few moments, I would like you to you can think about anything you like,
but there is one particular thing I would add under no circumstances should think about.
And this is a black and white cat sitting on my shoulder so you can think about anything else.
But don't think about that cat. So what?
What happened? I would hope that it would have illustrated to you that it's really hard not to think about it,
something so many people who do this experiment will say, well, immediately an image of a cat popped into my mind.
And this is exactly what what seems to be going on in people who develop PTSD after trauma as well,
that they will have many unwanted memories of the trauma popping into my mind, as I explained.
This is a normal experience after trauma.
But if they then think this means something bad about themselves, for instance, they might think I'm going crazy.
I'm not. I'm losing it. I won't be able to my do my job and ever again, they will then try very hard to push these memories out of their mind.
But as hopefully you will explain yourself. This actually has a paradoxical effect that actually these these memories pop into your mind more.
So it kind of increases the chances of finding unwanted memories, which then confirms them.
And that idea that they might be going crazy and losing it.
And it's why push even harder. And and they got tons of get stuck in this vicious circle.
So so we would want to break through these these vicious circles after trauma.
Another example here where it's more about some a meaning that a person took from from that trauma.
In this case, let's imagine somebody who was treated in hospital during the course of a pandemic.
In an ICU unit. And nobody was allowed to visit them.
As you well know. But people when they are sick and in a state of being being very sick and also having lots of medication and so on.
They might get into a kind of confusion state and be very confused about what's happening and not fully understand why nobody came to visit them.
And they might feel quite abandoned. And they may take from this fear the meaning or do what he really cares about me.
They would have come if they cared about me.
And then in the aftermath, when friends were trying to reach out to them and invite them or phone them, they may actually avoid them.
And made really was drawn socially and and not returned phone calls,
which then means the friends will take that as a sign that this contact is unwanted and they get fewer
invitations and fewer fewer calls and which then confirms for for this person or nobody cares about me.
So they might get in a vicious cycle like that. And we see that a lot of us people that we treat for post-traumatic stress disorder,
that breaking through these vicious cycles about meanings that people take from the
trauma then influences understandably and a logical way you could say that behaviours.
But that then prevents them. We only fight from protesting out that that that meaning and finding evidence against it.
So it seems to confirm the behaviour seems to lead to to a confirmation of these these meanings, just distressing meanings.
So breaking through this vicious cycles, spotting them and breaking through these vicious cycles and then behaving
differently to test out these meanings is an important way to get over trauma.
One more example. What gets in the way of recovery?
I don't have a lot of time to think about it, to talk about the nature of trauma memories.
That would be a lot to say about that. But but of we we don't have time for going into debt discussions about that.
But what I would like to highlight is the sense of fear now that trauma memories have soon after the trauma.
And and if people have chronic PTSD continuing for years and years, moments on the trauma popping into their mind when they don't want one, too.
And one important lesson we learnt when treating patients with this disorder and also from research is that it is useful to know about
the triggers of these memories because they can be quite difficult to spot because they often don't have meaningful relationships.
It's just about sensations that were around at the time.
And and it's it's really often just one particular sensation.
So it could be a particular colour, a particular smell, a sound or taste.
It could be it touches someone, the body or a particular movement that they perceived or that they made themselves.
And these can automatically trigger these very distressing memories that appear to be in here now.
And it's also the case that because these memories are so distressing, people would usually then look away or try to avoid this situation.
And that makes it very difficult for them to spot any differences between the reminder that that's in the current situation,
that that's not dangerous. And the original trauma KUZE.
And what we can do then and that's what we would also do in treatment when we treat people with PTSD,
is really working with the person on what are the the individual triggers.
So and something we can see, hear, smell, taste or feel in our body when a memory is triggered.
And let's say was the example of the person who was treated in intensive care.
So if there were many, many triggers, what one of them, for instance, was the blue colour that the NHS logo has.
As a kind of particular type of blue and red.
And for this person, anything that had this colour blue would trigger intrusive memories of the I say use this day.
So, for instance, somebody walking on the street with a t shirt and the same colour would be a trigger.
But there is no meaningful connexion that the t shirts are not dangerous.
And but still,
spotting this relationship then would would then help us to really look at what are the differences between them then the time of trauma.
And now a person with a blue t shirt. And and it's a completely different situation.
They are now recovered of it and they are better.
They are not ill. It's a person on the street. They are not in hospital.
So lots of differences. And and then so.
So really, zooming in, directing our attention to the differences can be really helpful in overcoming this
automatic reaction of being triggered by these cues in everyday life at a harmless.
And and I linked with a trauma through this kind of sensory connexion that we want to break.
And this takes some practise. But but people find it really helpful.
The last one I wanted to mention is dwelling on the trauma. And I think Jennifer Wilde has already talked about the negative effects of dwelling.
People may, after trauma, think about the questions like why did it happen to me?
What if I only hadn't done this or if I had done this?
And this can be a fear, quite compelling. They feel they should really to think about it more.
And it can kind of to come back in the kind of circular thinking about the trauma,
which can really negatively affect people's mood and also can keep them and risk going.
And we advise to to try to spot that when you're getting into these ruminative circles early,
because it's easier to interrupt them when you're when you're early on.
We do spot them and then take them as a sign to get active. So even if it's something simple,
like getting a cup of tea or doing a little bit of exercise and to really get out of the vicious circle of a dwelling,
and some people find it really useful to label that, like I have a picture of a carousel because as somebody who thought that was a good image.
All of that thoughts go in circles or so I get to you, thinking was was another good label, somebody that we saw came up with.
It's kind of all twisted up and and leads nowhere. It's kind of all of the spaghetti together.
So so spotting dwelling can be very helpful.
But I would also I would like to finish now with saying if if somebody gets stuck in this natural recovery,
that is that is a very and also very understandable consequence of trauma.
And the good news is that help is available.
So effective psychological treatments are available in the NHS and psychological treatments, other first-line treatments for this condition.
If you're interested in and in that, those are the nice guidelines have been published in 2018.
You can look them up on the Internet if you want.
I think you might need some help. You can discuss with those your GP who can advise about the best options.
You can also self refer to your local. Improving access to psychological therapy service in Oxford.
That's called talking space plus. And there's a service finder on the Internet.
If you Google, I services NHS and then you can find a website where you put in your postcode and find your the services that are closest to you.
And there's also various specialist trauma services and psychological treatment services in the NHS, depending on where.
You live?
Oh, well, they can offer longer treatments, especially for people who have very severe post-traumatic stress disorder or more complex problems,
was with several, several problems that need to be addressed. Thank you very much for your attention.
Great. Thank you ever so much indeed. I'm now delighted to introduce our fellow panel members.
So I'd like to introduce you to Maine if it's our who's associate professor in
child and adolescent psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry here in Oxford,
and also Morten Cringle back.
He's associate professor of neuroscience at the Department of Psychiatry and Senior Research Fellow at Queens College, London.
Thanks for Queenscliff chocs. Sorry. Thanks for joining us.
I think I've read them in different made their apologies.
And so we've received a number of questions which we're going to talk through.
So just to start with, I'd like to come to you,
Morten and Backspaces picks up on what Frank was saying about the range of different traumatic experience that people may happen,
the different effects they may have on different people. And so there were some questions about what distinguishes kind of trauma with a capital
T and other distressing experiences that we might not typically classes trauma.
And the labour questions really about what research can tell us about this.
So are there specific effects of the sort of capital T traumas?
And I guess ultimately, would we need to manage these different sorts of distressing events differently?
I mean, I think these are great questions. And, of course, we are still looking at them.
And it is wonderful talk sort of gets to the heart of that.
Remember when she showed the first slide, she said trauma is the psychological experience of having trauma.
Obviously, there are degrees of the kind of trauma that you can go through if you see it in a in an accident.
You may also hit your hit.
So, of course, that could both be the things that changes your brain, but also the things that changes your brain structurally.
So obviously that would have a larger impact. And May could well be what some people will classes trauma with a capital T.
But the other thing that Oncor so pointed out in our talk, which I think is a very important one, is the natural course of the disease,
namely that lots of lots of traumas will eventually go away or at least become better with time.
And so what can neuroscience tell about it? Well, again, unclear.
It provided a wonderful sort of answer to that, namely that one of the things that goes away is the enjoyment of things.
And one of the best things one can do is to actually enjoy things in psychological lingo, we call it.
And he donia and a volition the the lack of pleasure and the leg up wanting to do anything.
And of course, what is happening in the brain is that those circuits are being changed.
And the question, of course, then is, are they changed differently because you may have hit your head at the same time.
There may be structural consequences of that.
And the answer is absolutely certain things where you experience trauma potentially on a daily basis, like the military experience.
It's really a difficult one.
And of course, I think the key issue here, depending on what it is that we experience, is how do we avoid going from acute to chronic.
And this is exactly where the kinds of of treatments that the uncle has outlined is exactly what is needed.
Then, of course, it's very different if you trying to treat somebody who is experiencing a chronic
trauma every day of the week compared to somebody who's only had a one off.
So those are the kind of research questions that we are actively pursuing. Thanks very much.
What's it mean? I don't know if you want to add anything in relating this question about different thoughts.
The former and distressing events? Well, absolutely.
So I think what I talked about, about the subjective experience being crucial is that, you know,
there are so many different events that could potentially lead one to subjectively experience that it's traumatic.
And I do think that it's an incredibly exciting time for research as well, because I think research is something that has always played a key role.
But it's really started to help unpack in the natural course of what people experience.
And also the different types of interventions that might be able to help.
And this is that's really grabbing. They're really incredible innovations and we're learning a lot.
They're not set as well as kind of across different institutions. And so I think it's a key time for research to have different vulnerabilities.
There's also kind of neurodiversity and had different types of kind of brains and personality types might react to different events.
And then, you know, what I'm interested in is then what does that mean on the ground?
Interventions like what does that mean for how services can better adapt so that we become easier for a person who, as I can really clearly described,
is in avoidance is such a key part of this study that no matter how much we understand about what's going on,
if a person is just going to avoid coming through the door to get an intervention, what can we do to help that side?
I think there's so much so many different ways that present in our society, so much we can learn about how we can tailor interventions to really help.
Thank you. Martin. He told there about neuroscience and the contribution of neuroscience to our understanding of trauma.
I wondered if there anything else you wanted to add on that,
because we did certainly have some specific questions about the contribution of neuroscience,
sort of as distinct from psychology and how it is contributing to our understanding.
One of my former students now postdoctoral Marina Bulkier Ballester Shakira was also a student of Ankit.
So we supervised a project which she'd taken some of anxious interventions,
and uncle had scanned the participants patients before and after the intervention.
So now we were able to track over time what happened to the brains as they were initially just looking at what
happened when they had a traumatised images and then happened after they had successfully been been changed.
And very much like what Uncap demonstrated with that wonderful example with the black cat,
which of course, one of the key issues in trauma is that you keep basically doing what?
And of course, biggity thinking this this idea that you are stuck in a rut.
And the interesting thing was that once you had carried out this very carefully.
And what you found in the brain was that suddenly the patients were able to disconnect
from these traumatising pictures instead of just taking over like the black. They went away.
And of course, we now know exactly where that is happening in the brain.
And we not only do we know where it's happening, but we also know the networks of how different things are communicating.
And then I think it's an exciting piece of work that should be replicated in those communities.
It's important that this actually has real effect on the ground.
But again, taking into account the more diversity the media mentioned, I think it's crucially important and key, a really fascinating area.
And I mean, there are a lot of questions really about the variation of experiences, the variation.
The trick is both of the variation of people's responses and say there were particular questions about
psychosomatic symptoms and whether we might see the impacts of trauma three psychosomatic symptoms,
for example, pain. And if so, how best to cope with that?
I mean it. Can I come to a festival? Yes. So, you know, as we become aware today,
there's all these emotional and cognitive reactions within these expenses can also cause physical symptoms such as headaches,
digestive problems, nausea or diarrhoea or fatigue or feeling jumpy.
So there's a whole range of ways that the body can also kind of respond.
And I think the first thing that I would say is that, you know,
if you're getting headaches because of this, that these are really painful, truly experience symptoms.
And so pleasant is that this is not to dismiss this idea that this is not a real headache because it's causes to get some organic psycho pathology.
And so the first thing is that you need to be aware that trauma can affect everybody differently.
And for some people, that might have manifestations in these physical symptoms.
But then what to do about it? I think to know that there's no magic bullet that actually understanding that this is actually quite common, isn't it,
in a helpful what we call psycho education is such a basic part of starting to address it that we often say this is really you think,
well, it's a software problem rather than a hardware problem.
And so, you know, we can actually through a range of different methods and in a way, a very multidisciplinary approach.
We would talk about it in services, really help a person overcome it.
And so a lot of our uncle already talked about, said not to kind of forget the really important,
just basic principles of the importance of all those self things,
the importance of interpersonal relationships and the roles of friends of fabric,
maintaining your social networks, but also just believing that these kind of ways just help adapt, adapt better.
It's not saying that that headache isn't that is not saying that it's not painful.
It's just saying the way we can help the body cope better, the way we can shift that software in a problem a little bit is by ensuring that you
maintain that breadth of other activities that could maybe a system that overall recovery.
Thanks very much. We have several questions about issues relating to stigma.
And I mean,
that's something that obviously comes up across a lot of sessions that people may feel stigma themselves because of that the experiences that the
traumatic events they've had and or because of the expenses they've had
subsequently or may feel that they've experienced stigma from others around them.
Say there were some questions really about what research can tell us about the
impact of stigma associated with trauma and what people can do to be able to,
say, capable or overcome that same anchor. Can I come to you first for your thoughts on this?
So I think we can look at it at two levels, as you said.
One is the perceived stigma that the person themselves, as they may feel that what if they talk about the trauma to others,
that maybe they might feel quite ashamed about it and might then not disclose it to other people and they might think people would look down on them?
That's maybe a common and understandable. And and what we would advise that is that a.
It is possible that that is one of a vicious cycle that I talked about that that we just
assume that people would look down on us or would would not think about it so and so,
too, to really cheque it out and and and try to talk to some trusted friend and and do and
often you people will find that people are much more understanding than they thought.
But I don't want to deny that there is still some society to a stigma.
I think it's getting better about mental health in general and also particularly about trauma.
Many people start not speaking out about 12 months they experienced.
And I think this will cause a shift in the perception of trauma.
And also, I think the numbers that we've seen that it will happen to most people in their lifetime.
So it's not and only happened to a few a few people.
So it is. It is. But that's. That needs more work.
And also, the reactions of other people are not always helpful.
I mean, most most people will be happy.
But we can't deny that some of the people, at least the ones that we've seen and treatment, have reported with negative actions from other people.
And I think education about the effect of trauma has to be also part of a packet.
Thank you. Thanks very much.
We've got one last question and not to come to each of you feel for any final thoughts and reflections stimulated by this question.
So I'll come to Mina Moulton and then anchor. And this was really relating to the question about recovering it.
Obviously, Yankee presented that said graph, which very clearly showed the sort of natural pattern of recovery.
But I but one question that we received was whether it's ever possible to really
reach a stage where your unaffected by severe trauma that you've experienced,
including possibly trauma that you've experienced in childhood,
and whether you can ever get to a point where you're unaffected by that and say it mean it.
Can I come to a festival for your thoughts on that? Yeah, those really important question.
I think it comes at the heart of know many people have experienced children that they might
be more worried about hearing that it's always going to affect them negatively rather than,
you know, just looking at the reality of their life and how it's affected them.
I would say that, you know, all experience affects you.
So I would be really nervous to say you're unaffected. But the assumption that that effect is negative, we just have to question.
So I do think that we don't want to minimise people's pain and suffering of the impact of losses that might have caused trauma.
And many people are very negatively affected. But we also have to respect the fact that some people, as a result of terrible events,
do shift their world view in a way that they later perceive in a more positive light.
So so I think everyone is likely to be affected. I'm affected by almost everything that happens.
Good, bad. Sue somewhat Monday. So not to worry about being affected them.
And I'm also not a psychiatrist like we all traditions here.
So I do actually think that in the most severe cases are there are treatments that exist that are incredibly effective.
And so even you know, that that actually is is it?
These are, you know, interventions that can help.
But it's important that people who are the most negatively affected.
Often, you know, are able to access these treatments because I do think that can help.
Thanks so much, man there, Martin. Yeah, I think neuroscience clearly shows that your brain will be changed by everything.
Some others. But I think the evidence is also that you can shift constantly thinking about that cat on your shoulder to actually use that something.
And I think it's also important, like Mina said, to remember that true flourishing is often very closely associated with suffering.
It's often by going through terrible things that we come to new ways of actually appreciating.
And flourishing in this life. So, yes, I think they are very effective treatments.
We need to know more. Obviously more research is needed. But I think there is a possibility to change.
Thank you. And finally to you, Frank. Yeah, I agree. I agree with being on boards.
Said you can't really race. Well, always it will always stay a memory of a bad event.
And I think what I can add is that it might also be helpful to be prepared that
that there might be particular reminders like the anniversaries and so on,
that will come with a temporary phase. Well, one thinks more about it and feel and remember the bad events,
but then also take us as a sub taking that as a sign we engaged with life and and and what what life brings now and and also some potential growth.
Like Morton said, people report that they feel they are more they've seen positive changes in themselves,
like being more empathetic of other people, enjoying the good times more.
So that can also be an outcome and that's important.
Obviously, we also have to acknowledge that some people lost in the trauma may loss, have lost people they loved and and that will always be lost.
That has changed our life forever. We have to accept reality.
But that doesn't mean that we have to be stuck in the intrusive memories and the symptoms of PTSD much.
Sure. That brings us to claeys today. So I'd just like to say huge.
Thank you to all our speakers and panellists for joining us today for a really
interesting and I hope very useful session for everyone who has joined us.
Also here, thanks to everybody who joined us and also to Caia and Hally,
who've done lots of work behind the scenes to make this whole run really smoothly.
And, of course, thanks to the pattern of experimental psychology for hosting this series.
As I mentioned, do you have a look at the experimental psychology department Web site?
To our YouTube channel, four past talks and this tool will also be available there.
And just the last reminder that on the 20th of May at 2:00 p.m., we'll be running the next session on overcoming mistrust and paranoia.
So please stay join us for that. I'm sure it'll be a really interesting session. Thank you so much.
Please do take a little break now before you move on to what you need to be doing
next and give yourself a bit of time for a scratch or a walk or a cup of tea,
whatever would be good for you. And we look forward to seeing you again. Thanks ever so much.
Goodbye.