What's funnyface2 been up to?

Well, mostly, wedding stuff. And work.

Wedding...was fantastic. Taryn did our hair and makeup and we looked like...well, really really nice (even though I totally didn't recognize myself!) It was nice to dress up all fancy. The bride was running around in her underwear and veil (only) in the hotel room before the wedding, doing sexy poses...it was pretty funny. After the ceremony/dinner, there was dancing, with music provided by a 1960's/jazz/swing band. I danced with mistwalker a la old times and _altoid_  for a few hours then we all went to Calhouns to say goodbye to G* who is moving to New York. So sad to see him leave...I'll really miss his inappropriate comments and wandering hands. haha.

The other thing I've been working on is my thesis. FINALLY rewriting it in article format so it can be submitted for publication. The plan is to have it finished by September. Which probably won't happen, but I'm working on it.

If anyone is interested, the Introduction is below:



The story of survivors is one of courage and strength, of people who are living proof of the indomitable will of human beings to survive…of their tremendous capacity for hope. It is not a story of remarkable people. It is a story of just how remarkable people can be. (Helmreich, 1992, p. 276)

Although the Holocaust ended more than sixty years ago, it continues to generate a constant stream of books, films, and television programs. Historians, political scientists, and psychologists, among others, conduct research and formulate theories about various facets of the Holocaust. Because of more recent (and possible future) genocides – in Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sudan, for example – it remains necessary to gain a better understanding of the causes of genocide, the policies that make it possible, and the ways in which it can be predicted and perhaps prevented. Sui generis though it is, the Holocaust stands as a prototype with implications beyond its own intrinsic significance. Psychologists have engaged in Holocaust-related studies over the years, and in addition have often been called upon to treat survivors.

Psychological research on survivors relies heavily on retrospective narratives, which have also been collected for historical and educational purposes by a historians, museums, governments, and private foundations. Many of these collections are of recent vintage: many survivors did not talk about the Holocaust years until long after war. As a result, the record of their experiences and reactions is still far from complete. Scholars have described the “conspiracy of silence” that caused this delay. The “conspiracy” represented the confluence of a number of factors. Survivors themselves did not want to revive the memories of the horrors they had undergone and witnessed, nor did they wish to be marked as “different,” as victims, as liars, or – as was reported in some cases – to be viewed with suspicion as to what they might have done in order to survive. At the same time, those around them did not want to hear about atrocities or about the failure of their own and other nations to rescue the victims. Besides, society expected survivors, like other newcomers, to assimilate, conform, and move on with life as quickly as possible. Thus, both parties were in tacit agreement to maintain the silence (Bar-On et al., 1998; Dasberg, Bartura, & Amit, 2001). It was only after 1980, when many survivors had reached the age of life review and widely popular films such as Schindler’s List appeared, that the trickle of survivor narratives began turning into a flood.

The growth of oral history projects and autobiographical publications may have personal benefits that go beyond establishing the historical record. Recent research has shown that the active recall of traumatic events, whether through writing or talking, can improve mood, general health, and feelings of self-worth (Pennebaker & Francis, 1996). The degree of disclosure has also been shown to correlate positively with long-term health effects; this is attributed to direct influences on the immune system, influences on health enhancing behaviors, and changes in social relationships (Pennebaker, Barger, & Tiebout, 1989; Stone, Smyth, Kaell , & Hurewitz, 2000). Cognitive theorists attribute the positive effects of talking about trauma to the fact that recall requires a cognitive effort similar to that of coping with the experiences themselves (Suedfeld & Pennebaker, 1997). Telling one’s story is helpful in restoring the “traumatic discontinuities of personal memory, identity and social connectedness” (Dasberg, Bartura, & Amit, 2001, p. 34); organizing one’s memories into a coherent narrative may help to restore the “shattered assumptive world” of pre-Holocaust cognitive schemata (Janoff-Bulman, 1992).

The picture is not totally positive. Some studies have shown that premature processing of events can be counterproductive (Pennebaker & Francis, 1996). When disclosure occurs too soon after the event, it can disable some coping mechanisms, such as avoidance, leaving survivors more vulnerable to post-traumatic stress symptoms (Trappler, Braunstein, & Moskowitz, 2002). In extreme instances, remembering (and specifically, writing about) trauma has been theorized to have led to suicide, as in the case of Primo Levi (Rosenblum, 2000).

Literature concerning the psychology of Holocaust survivors takes a variety of approaches with regard to trauma and health. The focus of most research can be placed somewhere on a continuum between pathogenic and salutogenic approaches: respectively, those focusing on dysfunctions caused by trauma and increased psychological strength, insight, and growth arising out of the experience (Antonovsky, 1987). Pathogenic models, prevalent in clinical research, have resulted in terms such as “survivor-syndrome” and “concentration camp syndrome” (Dasberg, 2001; Helmreich, 1992). These labels refer to a cluster of symptoms supposedly attributable to Holocaust experiences. They include depression, anxiety, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, personality disorders, psychosocial difficulties, and memory loss (Bar-On et al., 1998; Dasberg, 2001; Yehuda, Schmeidler, Siever, Binder-Brynes, & Elkin, 1997). In short, these symptoms are all the commonly listed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD (DSM-IV, 1994). PTSD consists of a “triad” of symptoms: re-experiencing (flashbacks), avoidance/numbing (inability to feel emotion) and hyper-arousal (anxiety or insomnia) symptoms (Hagerman & Jorgensen, 2001).

Research concerning the prevalence of PTSD in survivors is also full of conflicting reports. One study ascribes a diagnosis of PTSD to 74% of its subjects (Trappler, Braunstein, & Moskowitz, 2002). This number is misleading, however, because the subjects in this study – as in most clinical reports -- were people who had sought treatment for these problems. Some researchers have found that the type and severity of symptoms vary depending on age, where the survivors were during the war and factors such as family history of mental disorders and support networks after the war (Hagerman, Andersen, & Jorgenson, 2001; Yehuda et al., 1997). Others have reported that survivors live normal lives on a day-to-day basis, yet in times of grief they show an increased prevalence of depression and dissociation compared to controls (Dasberg, Bartura, & Amit, 2001). Still others have concluded that although survivors do show some symptoms of PTSD, they rarely reach the clinical levels necessary to warrant a diagnosis of the disorder (Dasberg et. al., 2001; Suedfeld, 2000). As one survivor put it, “If you’ve been through Auschwitz and you don’t have nightmares then you’re not normal” (Helmreich, 1992, p. 217). Evidently, more research is required in order to determine whether survivors actually show an increased prevalence of PTSD when compared to their peers; the present study also addresses this issue.

Literature that takes the salutogenic approach focuses on survivors’ ability to overcome their traumatic experiences and, moreover, to use their experiences to achieve new aspirations, deeper understanding, and psychological growth. The psychological literature has also noted that people who cope successfully with negative events tend to have certain cognitive frameworks and personality traits. Typically, their personality is characterized by elements of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), hardiness (Kobasa, 1979), resilience (Beardslee & Podorefsky, 1988) or a sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1987).

Sense of coherence (SOC) forms the basis of the salutogenic approach. The scale measuring this factor incorporates three sub-scales: Meaningfulness, Comprehensibility and Manageability. According to Antonovsky (1987), Meaningfulness is the extent to which people feel in control of shaping their own destiny; they seek meaning, and view difficult situations as challenges worthy of investment and engagement. Comprehensibility is the extent to which people perceive the world around them as “ordered, consistent, structured and clear” (p. 17). People high on Comprehensibility expect future events to be predictable , “orderable and explicable” (p. 17). The last component, Manageability, is defined as the extent to which persons perceive that the resources they have at their disposal are sufficient to cope with the challenges they face. In short, when faced with negative experiences, a person with a high SOC would not grieve endlessly or feel victimized, but learn and grow from their experiences (see also Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).

Support for this model is provided by both anecdotal and experimental evidence, both of which conclude that on the whole, survivors are highly successful and productive people (e.g. Cohen, Brom & Dasberg, 2001; Suedfeld, 2001). Anecdotally, one can review the lives of survivors such as several Nobel laureates, religious leaders, business tycoons, scientists, scholars, and thousands of others who have made successful lives for themselves and their children (e.g. Helmreich, 1992; Suedfeld, 2000; Suedfeld, 2001). Moreover, survivors are generally shown to have high self-esteem, perhaps even “survivor pride,” which contradicts the stereotype of survivors as guilt-ridden, depressed, or withdrawn (Helmreich, 1992; Suedfeld, 2000). A review by Helmreich (1992) showed that flexibility, assertiveness, tenacity, optimism, intelligence, group consciousness, and courage are all traits commonly found in survivors. On average, they have successfully resolved the life-span series of psychosocial conflicts described by Erikson (see Suedfeld et al., 2005). Often, their “outlook on life and their attitudes about the world are indistinguishable” from peers of the same age who did not experience the Holocaust at first hand (Suedfeld, 2000, p. 8).

Based on earlier research, the hypotheses for the current study are:
1. Survivors will show a higher incidence of post-traumatic stress symptoms than the Comparison group.
2. The mean levels of sense of coherence and self-esteem will be higher among survivors than the
Comparison group. 3. Within both groups, subjects with higher SOC and self-esteem will report fewer symptoms of PTSD.
4. Survivors who told their stories sooner after the war will consider it more important to do so.
5. Survivors who told their stories sooner after the war will report fewer symptoms of PTSD and will score higher on the SOC.



The results are finalized. Now I just have to write up the discussion. Oh boy.