Publications by authors named "Marie E Secrist"
Although nightmares are frequently endorsed symptoms in children who have experienced trauma, limited research has been conducted on how nightmares vary with different forms of trauma exposure. Our goal was to assess the relationship between nightmares, trauma exposure, and symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in youth. A total of 4440 trauma exposed treatment-seeking youth (ages 7 to 18) were administered the UCLA PTSD Reaction Index.
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- Complex trauma refers to the repeated exposure to traumatic experiences during early childhood, particularly within caregiving relationships, impacting various areas of a child's development.
- Attachment disorders, such as reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement disorder, are frequently diagnosed in children from the welfare system, which raises concerns due to the stigma and lack of reliable assessment tools.
- The article reviews a statewide assessment program for these youth, highlighting both its strengths and areas for improvement, and includes a case study that illustrates the program's compliance with best practices in diagnosing and providing recommendations.
Objective: There is little research in the current literature regarding contributing factors to nightmares in children. This study aimed to test potentially overlapping predictors of nightmare distress and severity, including anxiety, dissociation, trauma history, vagal tone, and parental processing of emotions.
Method: Sixty parent-child dyads (children ages 6-11) filled out a variety of child-report and parent-observation inventories on nightmare frequency and distress, dissociation, anxiety, and trauma history of the child.