Extreme Stress in Adult Life and Its Psychic and Psychophysiological Consequences.
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Abstract
Psychoanalytic views that all serious adult maladjustment must have its roots in infantile psychic trauma are undermined by evidence from the study of survivors of prisoner of war and concentration camps. Survivors of the most severe of these experiences have shown a constellation of physical, psychological, and social difficulties which even a quarter century of time and, in some cases, of physical and psychiatric therapy, have not eradicated. It appears that some extreme experiences of adult life can be so painful that they can bring about almost irreversible damage. Implications for treatment of prisoners of war are drawn.