Mental defeat and cumulative trauma experiences predict trauma-related psychopathology: evidence from a postconflict population in northern Uganda
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The peritraumatic cognitive process of mental defeat, the complete loss of inner resistance, has been identified as a key predictor of PTSD. Yet, most evidence on cognitive risk factors stems from industrialized countries where survivors typically report few traumata. Research from postconflict settings indicates that individual differences decrease with accumulating traumatic experiences, as almost everybody develops PTSD at extreme levels of trauma load. Would this leave less room for the impact of cognitive processes? In a sample of 227 Ugandan rebel war survivors, we investigated whether mental defeat influences trauma-related psychopathology in regression models accounting for cumulative trauma exposure. We found strong main effects of mental defeat on lifetime PTSD risk, current PTSD severity and dissociative symptoms, but no mental defeat × trauma load interaction effects. Our results indicate that peritraumatic mental defeat is central to understand individual differences in psychological reactions after single traumatic events as well as multiple traumatization.
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Peritraumatic mental defeat has been implicated in the development of PTSD.
“Peritraumatic mental defeat, a peritraumatic process, consisting of complete loss of inner resistance has also been implicated in the development in PTSD (14, 17, 18) as well as perceived threat to life (19).”
From Early Linguistic Markers of Trauma-Specific Processing Predict Post-trauma Adjustment (2018) · cites this paper as [18]
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- Authors
- Wilker, S., Kleim, B., Geiling, A., Pfeiffer, A., Elbert, T., & Kolassa, I.-T.
- Affiliations
- Universität Ulm (DE)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- University of Konstanz (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Wilker, Sarah
- Venue
- Clinical Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2017-08-18
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 974-984
- ISSN
- 2167-7026 (ISSN-L)
- 2167-7034
- OpenAlex
- W2745570211
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 1.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nbn-resolving.de
- Locations
- Clinical Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion)
- KOPS (University of Konstanz) (submittedVersion)
- PUB – Publications at Bielefeld University (Bielefeld University) (submittedVersion)
- Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld (Universität Bielefeld) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (KO3895/4)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Migration, Health and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Keywords
- mental defeat, cumulative trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative symptoms, war survivors, Northern Uganda conflict, PTSD risk factors
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