[SUPPRESSION OF A NON-TRAUMA-RELATED THREATENING THOUGHT AS AN AVOIDANCE STRATEGY IN POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER...

Our goal was to examine how suppression of nontrauma- related thoughts differs between PTSD patients and patients with non-PTSD anxiety disorder compared to a group of matched controls.

Intrusive recollections of aspects of the traumatic event and its sequelae are at the core of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People who have suffered a traumatic event may implement some form of avoidance coping strategies in order to deal with the unwanted memories that accompany them. Thought suppression refers to the conscious effort that is made in order NOT to think about a particular thought and is used to regulate affect. The effects of thought suppression on trauma survivors indicates that suppression of trauma related thoughts produces a rebound effect, increasing frequency of negative autobiographical memory recall and may result in the maintenance of PTSD symptoms.

The results show that PTSD patients differed in their performance of purposeful suppression of non-traumarelated thoughts, and spent significantly longer time thinking about the target thought during suppression as compared to the control groups. The duration to disengage attention from any thought content was significantly longer in PTSD patients as compared to the anxiety group and controls.

We suggest that PTSD patients demonstrated a mental control deficient in self-regulatory mechanisms involved in coping with threat.

While PTSD patients used external objects in the room, the control groups used mental contents as distractors. When given suppression instructions, such as distraction thought, all groups demonstrated shorter duration to disengage attention, but the PTSD patients exhibited the significant advantage.