Biological Component
Virginia has numerous biological components that are harming her overall well-being. Virginia has a likelihood of having a mental illness related to the trauma she has experienced. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that occurs in people after witnessing or experiencing a stressful event such as sexual assault, rape, or violent personal assault (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013). This stress-related disorder is characterized by symptoms of anxiety, depression, flashbacks, nightmares and avoidance (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013). Virginia may have PTSD because of the trauma she has experienced. She was sexually assaulted during a robbery, sexually molested by an uncle at the age of six and encounter
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Hyperarousal creates a stress-induced dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system and the amygdala, generating agitation, anxiety, startle reflex, and irritability (Cozolio, 2010). Virginia has anxiety, which is the source of her panic attacks. Intrusion can manifest itself as flashbacks because the stressful experience has broken into conscious awareness resulting in the re-experiencing of trauma (Cozolio, 2010). The death of Virginia’s son has brought back flashbacks of her older brother being killed in Vietnam. The corticohippocampal is unable to contextualize emotional, sensory, and somatic memories within the autobiographical memory causing an individual to have no sense of the trauma’s time or place (Cozolio, 2010). Virginia could experience difficulties remembering the details of her trauma. Virginia did not remember her sexual molestation as a child until she got sexually abused. The last symptom is avoidance, which includes denial, withdrawing from family, dissociation, and amnesia (Cozolio, 2010). Virginia is withdrawing from her two sons that could possibly help her with living conditions. She is avoiding anything that relates to death, which made her quit her job as a