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Vulnerability, Posttraumatic
Posttraumatic vulnerability is a broad term, referring to the emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical damages one often suffers following exposure to a traumatic event, which may leave one in a weakened, more fragile state, compared with one's pretraumatic state.
Vulnerability and Inoculation
One of the most widely documented expressions of posttraumatic vulnerability may be seen in instances where exposure to an early traumatic event heightens the risk of developing psychopathology following exposure to subsequent trauma. This pattern of events is best described by the “vulnerability perspective.” According to the latter, trauma often scars its victims; its residues leaving them permanently weakened in the face of future stress. In line with that perspective, studies have shown that prior trauma may increase the risk for retraumatization, as well as ...
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