National Center for PTSD.
Personal Disord. 2018 Jul;9(4):315-323. doi: 10.1037/per0000251. Epub 2017 May 11.
Recent literature suggests that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms can interact with personality factors to predict externalizing behaviors. Engagement in externalizing behaviors such as substance abuse and aggressive behavior may, in turn, increase risk for further trauma exposure and a more chronic course of PTSD. In order to better understand how to intervene on this cycle, the current study aimed to identify factors that could explain risk for externalizing behaviors among trauma-exposed veterans. Moreover, we aimed to identify whether psychological flexibility, a skill drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), may mitigate risk for engagement in externalizing behavior. Results indicated that PTSD symptoms indirectly predicted externalizing behavior via negative urgency, or the propensity to act rashly in the context of distress. Moreover, psychological flexibility moderated this relationship such that negative urgency was less strongly associated with aggressive behavior at high levels of psychological flexibility. These results highlight moments of intense distress as important targets for therapeutic intervention, and psychological flexibility as a potentially important therapeutic skill for reducing externalizing behavior among trauma-exposed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record
最近的文献表明，创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）症状可以与人格因素相互作用，预测外化行为。参与外化行为，如药物滥用和攻击行为，反过来又会增加进一步创伤暴露和更慢性 PTSD 的风险。为了更好地理解如何干预这种循环，本研究旨在确定可以解释创伤后老兵外化行为风险的因素。此外，我们旨在确定是否可以从接受和承诺疗法（ACT）中获得的心理灵活性来降低外化行为的风险。结果表明，PTSD 症状通过冲动性，即在困境中鲁莽行事的倾向，间接地预测了外化行为。此外，心理灵活性调节了这种关系，使得在高心理灵活性水平下，冲动性与攻击行为的相关性较弱。这些结果强调了强烈痛苦的时刻是治疗干预的重要目标，以及心理灵活性是减少创伤后个体外化行为的一个潜在重要治疗技能。
