Children may be affected by “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”. This is “a long lasting distressful emotional disorder that is triggered by a harsh threat that produces feelings of helplessness, and extreme fear” (Hall, 2011, p.1). A person affected by the “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” may experience hallucinations, recurrent thoughts, dreams and perceptions which are distressing. While an individual is experiencing this disorder, he or she engages in reliving the trauma, evades those situations that bring back the trauma memories, and turns out to be somehow insensitive in his or her responding to the surroundings. One of the causes of the “Post Traumatic Disorder” in children may be sexual abuse (Hall, 2011). This may lead to the transcrisis state. James (2008) points out that the transcrisis state refers to “the ‘emotional roller coaster’ that is prevalent in trauma victims’ lives when they do not effectively deal with the crisis immediately following the incident, in terms of psychological acceptance” (James, 2008, p.13). Such unprocessed trauma leads to having more “life stressors triggering emotional responses that revert directly back to trauma, keeping the clients in a cycle of repeated problems until the issues are addressed” (James, 2008, p.13). Hall (2011) presents a case of Cassandra who was sexually abused by the father while they were living together. She ended up in a transcrisis state. She is stressed to a level that she attempts suicide. Such a situation is a delicate one and needs to be handling wisely in order to prevent the situation from getting worse. It is important for children who are experience such crises as sexual abuse to be helped early enough in time in order fro the trauma they go through not to develop into very dangerous states.
References
Hall, E. (2011). Analysis and application: Understanding PTSD and crisis intervention. Web.
James, R.K. (2008). Crisis Intervention Strategies, Sixth Edition. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.