Foundational Terms

A SCARS Institute Scam Victim Recovery Insight

Often trauma sufferers try to focus on a single cause and look for a single solution.

This is not realistic, since trauma is a whole-of-body process.

The body does not have one stress system. It has an integrated stress network.

That network includes the brain, autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, metabolism, muscles, digestion, sleep systems, and behavior.

Stress is not automatically harmful. Acute stress can help a person survive and adapt. Chronic, repeated, or overwhelming stress (trauma) can become damaging when the body cannot return to baseline.

Here are some useful terms that can often be misunderstood:

“Trauma”

Is any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.

Traumatic events include those caused by human behavior (e.g., crime, rape, war, accidents) as well as by nature (e.g., earthquakes, severe weather) and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place.

“Stress”

The physiological or psychological response to internal or external stressors.

Stress involves changes affecting nearly every system of the body, influencing how people feel and behave.

For example, it may be manifested by palpitations, sweating, dry mouth, shortness of breath, fidgeting, accelerated speech, augmentation of negative emotions (if already being experienced), and longer duration of stress fatigue. Severe stress is manifested by the general adaptation syndrome. By causing these mind–body changes, stress contributes directly to psychological and physiological disorder and disease and affects mental and physical health, reducing quality of life.

It was first described in the context of psychology around 1940 by Hungarian-born Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye (1907–1982)

“Stressor”

Is any event, force, or condition that results in physical or emotional stress. Stressors may be internal or external forces that require adjustment or coping strategies on the part of the affected individual.

“General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)”

The physiological consequences of severe stress.

The syndrome has three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion:

The first stage, the alarm reaction (or alarm stage), comprises two substages: the shock phase, marked by a decrease in body temperature, blood pressure, and muscle tone and loss of fluid from body tissues; and the countershock phase, during which the sympathetic nervous system is aroused and there is an increase in adrenocortical hormones, triggering a defensive reaction, such as the fight-or-flight response.

The resistance stage (or adaptation stage) consists of stabilization at the increased physiological levels. High blood pressure can develop into hypertension, with risk of cardiovascular disturbance. Resources may be depleted and permanent organ changes produced.

The exhaustion stage is characterized by breakdown of acquired adaptations to a prolonged stressful situation; it is evidenced by sleep disturbances, irritability, severe loss of concentration, restlessness, trembling that disturbs motor coordination, fatigue, jumpiness, low startle threshold, vulnerability to anxiety attacks, depressed mood, and crying spells.

“Fight-or-Flight Response”

Is a pattern of physiological changes elicited by activity of the sympathetic nervous system in response to threatening or otherwise stressful situations that leads to mobilization of energy for physical activity (e.g., attacking or avoiding the offending stimulus), either directly or by inhibiting physiological activity that does not contribute to energy mobilization.

Specific sympathetic responses involved in the response include increased heart rate, respiratory rate, and sweat gland activity; elevated blood pressure; decreased digestive activity; pupil dilation; and a routing of blood flow to skeletal muscles. In some theories, such changes are the basis of all human emotions. Also called emergency reaction; emergency syndrome.

“Chronic Stress”

The physiological or psychological response to a prolonged internal or external stressful event (i.e., a stressor). The stressor need not remain physically present to have its effects; recollections of it can substitute for its presence and sustain chronic stress.

“Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”

In the DSM–IV–TR, a disorder that may result when an individual lives through or witnesses an event in which they believe that there is a threat to life or physical integrity and safety and experiences fear, terror, or helplessness. This includes betrayal trauma and threat of death trauma.

The symptoms are characterized by:

• (a) reexperiencing the trauma in painful recollections, flashbacks, or recurrent dreams or nightmares;
• (b) avoidance of activities or places that recall the traumatic event, as well as diminished responsiveness (emotional anesthesia or numbing), with disinterest in significant activities and with feelings of detachment and estrangement from others; and
• (c) chronic physiological arousal, leading to such symptoms as an exaggerated startle response, disturbed sleep, difficulty in concentrating or remembering, and guilt about surviving the trauma when others did not.

Subtypes are chronic posttraumatic stress disorder and delayed posttraumatic stress disorder. When the symptoms do not last longer than 4 weeks, a diagnosis of acute stress disorder is given instead.

Changes in PTSD criteria from DSM–IV–TR to DSM–5 and DSM-5-TR include the following: Exposure to the traumatic event may be secondhand if the event happens to a loved one or if there is repeated exposure to aversive details (e.g., as with first responders cleaning up after a disaster) – this is also known as Vicarious Trauma.

“Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder”

A form of posttraumatic stress disorder that is diagnosed when the symptoms persist over a period of more than 3 months.

“Trauma Management Therapy”

Is a treatment program intended to alleviate the anxiety and fear, manage the anger, and enhance the interpersonal functioning of individuals with trauma or with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It is a sequential multicomponent approach that combines:

• (a) education, in which the client is informed about the symptom chronicity, skill deficits, and extreme social maladjustment associated with trauma or PTSD;
• (b) exposure therapy, in which the client reexperiences, in imagination or through virtual reality, their specific traumatic event during individually administered weekly sessions;
• (c) programmed practice, in which the client performs exposure-related homework assigned by the therapist; and
• (d) socioemotional rehabilitation, in which the client participates in structured, group-administered social and emotional skills training sessions.

Developed in 1996 by clinical psychologists B. Christopher Frueh (1963–  ), Samuel M. Turner (1944–2005), Deborah C. Beidel, and Robert F. Mirabella, health administrator and political scientist Walter J. Jones, and employed by the SCARS Institute and trauma therapists.

“Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy”

A components-based, short-term cognitive-behavioral treatment that integrates trauma-sensitive interventions with cognitive restructuring, exposure, and family involvement to alleviate posttraumatic stress and related issues.

It is designed to treat individuals who have experienced trauma by reducing trauma-related emotional and behavioral symptoms. Core treatment components, based on the PRACTICE model, include psychoeducation, relaxation, affective modulation, cognitive coping and processing, trauma narrative, in vivo mastery of trauma reminders, and enhancing future safety and development.

It is often used as a first-line treatment for trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as trauma-related depression, anxiety, and behavioral dysregulation.

“Survivor Guilt”

A remorse or guilt for having survived a catastrophic event when others did not or for not suffering the ills that others had to endure. It is a common reaction stemming in part from a feeling of having failed to do enough to prevent the event or to save those who did not survive. Survivor guilt is also experienced by family members who are found not to carry deleterious genetic mutations that have led to disease and, often, death in other family members, or by family or friends who feel that they did not do enough to succor their loved ones prior to death. This is common in scam victims.

“Traumagenic”

Describing or relating to the dynamics by which a traumatic event (e.g., childhood sexual abuse) may have long-term negative consequences, including the development of a mental disorder.

“Traumatic Grief”

A severe form of separation distress that usually occurs following the sudden and unexpected death of a loved one. Numbness and shock are frequently accompanied by a sense of futility and the meaninglessness of life, although the total syndrome includes many other painful and dysfunctional responses. This affects scam victims due to the disintegration of the false identity relationship.

“Complex Or Complicated Grief”

A response to death (or, sometimes, to other significant loss or trauma) that deviates significantly from normal expectations.

Three different types of complicated grief are posited: chronic grief, which is intense, prolonged, or both; delayed grief; and absent grief.

The most often observed form of complicated grief is the pattern in which the immediate response to the loss is exceptionally devastating and in which the passage of time does not moderate the emotional pain or restore competent functioning.

Prof. Emeritus Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
July 2026