The authors assessed effects of paraplegic and quadriplegic spinal cord injuries (SCIs) on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by comparing severity and prevalence of PTSD in these groups to a sample of controls who experienced traumatic injuries other than SCI. The authors found that veterans with quadriplegia reported significantly less severe current PTSD symptoms than controls who were not significantly different from veterans with paraplegia. These results suggest that sustaining a quadriplegic SCI decreases risk of current PTSD, whereas sustaining a paraplegic SCI is associated with greater risk of PTSD, although the risk is no greater than that incurred from experiencing the trauma itself.

Trauma-related risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were examined in a sample of 125 veterans with spinal cord injury. Category of injury was found to be the most consistent predictor of PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity with paraplegia predicting more PTSD symptoms than quadriplegia. The occurrence of a head injury at the time of the trauma was found to predict PTSD symptom severity measures, but not PTSD diagnosis. Trauma recency consistently predicted Impact of Event score (IES) and was found to be related to current PTSD severity and lifetime PTSD diagnosis in multiple but not simple regression models. Trauma severity was found to be significantly related to self-reported PTSD symptoms and lifetime PTSD diagnosis in simple but not in multiple regression analyses. Type of trauma, alcohol or other drug (AOD) use during the trauma and loss of consciousness (LOC) during the trauma were not consistently associated with PTSD symptom severity or diagnosis.

Mindfulness training and compassion-focused approaches are both significant, rising clinical and research trends in cognitive and behavioral therapies. In the historical Buddhist lineages that developed mindfulness practices, initial training in mindfulness frequently evolves into specific training in compassion and loving kindness for self and others. The sequencing of this mental training would suggest that there is a relationship between the experience of mindfulness and the experience of compassion, wherein mindfulness may serve as a context for compassion-focused approaches. Accordingly, current cognitive and behavioral therapies that make use of these concepts often interrelate the development of mindfulness with an emergent compassionate perspective. If this relationship is to bear the scrutiny of a scientific practice, then we would expect to see evidence of a such a relationship between the experience of mindfulness and compassion. Further, a scientific rationale for mindfulness as a context for compassion-focused therapies would be useful, if Western therapies are to integrate these processes responsibly. The present article is aimed at providing an exploration of the constructs of mindfulness and compassion, and the hypothesized neurophysiological processes involved in their cultivation. An examination of the relevant theoretical and neuroimaging literature reveals that both mindful awareness and a felt sense of compassion may be interrelated dimensions of human functioning, having their evolutionary roots in human relational behaviors. This is in accord with Buddhist philosophy, which has explained both the experience of mindful awareness and the phenomenology of an arising of compassion as correlates of a direct experience of the self as an interrelated part of a greater process of ever-evolving, interbeing.

No abstract