Planning for the Psychosocial and Mental Health Needs of People Affected by Emergencies

Multiple Choice Questions for the ESTSS Workshop: Psychoeducation, Stabilisation and Grounding, held in Newcastle on 6th March 2013

Please place an “X” next to the correct answer of the questions below, save the questionnaire and send it electronically to

1. Complex PTSD includes (mark all correct answers):
2. PTSD symptoms: avoidance/numbing, re-experiencing, hyper-arousal
3. Inter-personal difficulties due to perceiving others as a threat with problems of trust, intimacy and self-stigma
4. Emotional dysregulation: difficulty identifying emotions, restricted range of affect, inability to tolerate distress, chronic feelings of guilt, shame
5. Cognitive symptoms: impaired concentration and problem-solving, rigidly held negative beliefs, dissociation

1. According to Brewin traumatic memories are (mark all correct answers):
2. Based in the hippocampus
3. Based in the amygdala
4. Fragmented and frozen in time
5. Verbally accessible

1. Ehlers and Clark considered that the two key processes in the development of PTSD and the perceived sense of current threat are due to (mark all correct answers):
2. Negative appraisals of the trauma and it’s sequelae
3. Negative emotional responses to the traumatic event
4. Disturbance of autobiographical memory, characterised by strong perceptual memories (such as intrusive images and emotions) which are disconnected from their context and an intellectual understanding of the trauma
5. Disruption in cognitive processes of attention

1. Janoff-Bulman considered that trauma impacts on pre-existing beliefs and shatters assumptions about the world by the following (mark all correct answers):
2. Prior sense of personal invulnerability
3. Subsequent perception of the world as meaningless and incomprehensible
4. Subsequent view of self in a negative light
5. New information can’t be assimilated

1. Phased-based interventions are based on the philosophy that (mark all correct answers):
2. The “window of tolerance” relates to the ability to regulate emotional and psychological arousal when it rises to its upper limits (sympathetic activation) or lower limits (parasympathetic activation)
3. People need to learn new strategies to cope with intense emotions associated with the trauma (rather than addictive behaviours, self-harm, dissociation)
4. Repeated trauma increases our capacity for attention and consciousness
5. People will move from one phase to another in sequence

1. If your client is experiencing a hypo-arousal response which one of the following would you expect to see?
2. Agitation
3. Self-blame
4. Talking less
5. Hyperventilation

1. Which of the following is not true about psychoeducation?
2. It helps the client understand the rationale for trauma-focused treatment
3. Inexperienced therapists can spend too long on this phase of work
4. It can help the client understand their reactions as adaptive responses
5. It provides an opportunity to establish a collaborative working relationship

1. If a client has a tendency to dissociate which two of the following will be helpful in managing this?
2. Guided visualisation techniques
3. Grounding techniques
4. Getting them to talk through the trauma memory in detail
5. The therapist asking more questions

1. Why is it useful for the therapist and client to be able to distinguish between a flashback and an intrusion?(mark all correct answers)
2. Because flashbacks are more serious symptoms
3. Because it helps them develop appropriate skills to manage their reactions
4. Because they may have different triggers
5. Because flashbacks are more common in complex PTSD

1. Which of the following techniques will be helpful for clients to learn to manage their hyper-arousal symptoms? (mark all correct answers)
2. Progressive muscular relaxation
3. How to distract themselves
4. Calming breathing
5. Adrenaline-based exercise