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Self-concept, post-traumatic self-appraisals and post-traumatic psychological adjustment: what are the relationships?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2020

Alberta Engelbrecht  and
Laura Jobson
Alberta Engelbrecht*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK
Laura Jobson
Affiliation:
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Background:

Cognitive models of post-traumatic psychological adjustment have implicated both self-concept and self-appraisals in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Two studies investigated the relationship between self-concept and trauma-related self-appraisals, and whether culture influenced this relationship.

Method:

In Study 1, a student sample (Asian n = 41, British n = 34) who self-identified as having been through a trauma or extremely stressful event completed measures of self-concept, trauma-related self-appraisals and trauma-related distress. Study 2 extended this by asking Asian (n = 47) and British (n = 48) trauma survivors with and without PTSD to complete the same self measures as those administered in Study 1.

Results:

Study 1 found that overall for the British group, disruptions in self-concept (i.e. self-discrepancies and trauma-themed self-concept) correlated significantly with negative self, world and self-blame appraisals and depression. However, the same was not found in the Asian group. Study 2 found that pan-culturally those with PTSD had greater self-discrepancies and trauma-defined self-concept than those without PTSD. Additionally, pan-culturally, trauma-defined self-concept correlated significantly with negative self appraisals and depression; ideal self-discrepancies correlated significantly with negative self-appraisals across cultures and depression for the British group; while ought self-discrepancies correlated significantly with negative world appraisals for the Asian group and negative self and self-blame appraisals for the British. Lastly, negative self, world and self-blame appraisals correlated with symptoms of depression.

Conclusions:

Taken together, the findings relay the important associations between appraisals, self-concept and post-traumatic psychological adjustment.

Keywords

appraisalsidentityself-conceptself-discrepancytrauma
Type
Main
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , July 2020 , pp. 463 - 480
Copyright
© British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2020

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Footnotes

Author note: prior dissemination of some ideas and data appearing in this manuscript were presented at the Los Angeles USA Regional Conference of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology 2013.

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