LMU Munich, Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802 Munich, Germany; University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and Schoen Klinik Hamburg-Eilbek, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
J Anxiety Disord. 2017 Apr;47:21-28. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.02.002. Epub 2017 Feb 3.
There is an ongoing debate as to whether traumatization also affects the close relatives of trauma survivors who have symptoms of PTSD. Although many studies provide evidence favoring a transgenerational transmission, other studies have not found evidence to support this idea. The present study examined whether adult offspring of individuals exposed to trauma during forced displacement with (n=22) and without PTSD (n=24) exhibit an implicit avoidance of stimuli related to the parental trauma compared to children of non-trauma exposed control participants (n=23) using an Approach-Avoidance task (AAT). Offspring participants were requested to push (i.e., avoidance) or pull (i.e., approach) displacement-related and neutral pictures, whereby response direction depended on a non-affective dimension (color of the pictures). Results suggest that the offspring of non-PTSD participants exhibit implicit avoidance of displacement-related stimuli. This rather unexpected finding might either indicate resilience amongst offspring of PTSD participants or that offspring of non-PTSD participants are particularly affected. If these results were to replicate, they suggest that implicit avoidance tendencies amongst the offspring of trauma exposed participants might partially contribute to their heightened PTSD vulnerability. Longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate whether implicit avoidance tendencies are associated with increased stress vulnerability.
目前，关于创伤是否也会影响 PTSD 症状的创伤幸存者的近亲，存在着持续的争论。尽管许多研究提供了支持代际传递的证据，但其他研究并没有发现支持这一观点的证据。本研究使用趋近回避任务（AAT），检验了在强制流离失所期间经历创伤的个体的成年子女（有 PTSD：n=22，无 PTSD：n=24）与未经历创伤的对照组儿童（n=23）相比，是否表现出对与父母创伤相关的刺激的内隐回避。要求子女参与者推动（即回避）或拉动（即接近）与流离失所相关的和中性的图片，反应方向取决于非情感维度（图片的颜色）。结果表明，非 PTSD 参与者的子女表现出对流离失所相关刺激的内隐回避。这一出乎意料的发现可能表明 PTSD 参与者的子女具有韧性，或者非 PTSD 参与者的子女受到特别影响。如果这些结果得到复制，它们表明，创伤暴露参与者的子女中存在的内隐回避倾向可能部分导致他们 PTSD 易感性增加。需要进行纵向研究，以阐明内隐回避倾向是否与增加的压力易感性有关。
