Janssen Steve M J, Hearne Tara L, Takarangi Melanie K T
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Australia.
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Australia.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2015 Sep;48:177-84. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.04.002. Epub 2015 Apr 13.
Psychological distance refers to how far and how long ago an event feels to a person and how distant this person feels from their past self who experienced the event. Psychological distance is related to the recollective experience of the memory, but people with PTSD and depression remember positive and negative events differently. Whereas people with depression tend to have over-general memory, people with PTSD often relive traumatic experiences (i.e., intrusive memories). These findings suggest that people with PTSD might feel close to negative events and that people with depression might feel distant from positive events.
In the present study, students (N = 103) reported their PTSD and depression symptoms and the psychological distance of highly positive and highly negative events.
In line with previous work, participants generally felt close to positive experiences and distant from negative experiences. However, this study is the first one to show that participants with more depression symptoms feel psychologically distant from positive events and participants with more PTSD symptoms feel psychologically close to negative events.
Although we did not establish whether the negative event was traumatic and whether the participants with many PTSD and depression symptoms suffered from these disorders, these limitations can be addressed in future research.
The results emphasize the important role of identifying with positive events in depression and they support the idea that PTSD is caused by the fact that the traumatic event has become central to a person's life story.
心理距离指的是一个人对某一事件感觉有多远以及多久以前发生的，以及这个人感觉自己与经历该事件的过去的自我有多遥远。心理距离与记忆的回忆体验有关，但创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）患者和抑郁症患者对积极和消极事件的记忆方式不同。抑郁症患者往往有过度概括的记忆，而PTSD患者经常反复体验创伤经历（即侵入性记忆）。这些发现表明，PTSD患者可能会感觉与消极事件接近，而抑郁症患者可能会感觉与积极事件疏远。
在本研究中，学生（N = 103）报告了他们的PTSD和抑郁症状以及高度积极和高度消极事件的心理距离。
与之前的研究一致，参与者总体上感觉与积极经历接近，与消极经历疏远。然而，本研究首次表明，抑郁症状较多的参与者在心理上与积极事件疏远，而PTSD症状较多的参与者在心理上与消极事件接近。
尽管我们没有确定消极事件是否具有创伤性，以及有许多PTSD和抑郁症状的参与者是否患有这些疾病，但这些局限性可以在未来的研究中解决。
结果强调了在抑郁症中认同积极事件的重要作用，并支持了PTSD是由创伤事件成为一个人生命故事的核心这一事实所导致的观点。
