Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Emma Freetly Porter
Keywords
CPTSD, trauma, perceived social support, resilient coping, Complex trauma
Abstract
Individuals who have experienced repeated and interpersonal trauma often develop symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with additional features relating to disturbances in self-organization (DSO), which is now known as Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). CPTSD has been seen to be associated with adverse outcomes such as somatic symptoms, attachment insecurity, and overall lower life satisfaction (Karatzias et al., 2018; Kuhar & Zager Kocjan 2022; Maercker et al, 2022). Due to these additional features relating to DSO, CPTSD has been identified as distinct from PTSD, and so it has been important to investigate these unique symptoms. One such symptom includes difficulties with interpersonal relationships. As CPTSD has been known to be caused by repeated interpersonal trauma it follows that these individuals would have difficulties creating and maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Therefore, social support has been seen to be a factor specifically impacted by CPTSD (Daniunaite et al., 2021; Simon et al., 2019). It was hypothesized that those individuals who suffered from CPTSD would exhibit lower levels of perceived social support thus negatively impacting their ability to cope with stress in a resilient way. The present study endeavored to test these hypotheses by asking those with CPTSD to answer questions relating to how they perceived their social support and how they have coped with stress in an adaptive way to see how each of these factors were related.
Recommended Citation
Eng, Elizabeth, "The Impact of Perceived Social Support on Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1097