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Children's Reactions to Exposure to Chronic Violence: Are We Doing Enough?
Alia Ammar
Loyola University Chicago
Department of Psychology
6525 N. Sheridan
Chicago, Il. 60626
(773) 508-3001
Violence has reached epidemic proportions in American society. In fact, the effects of violence have now become a national health concern (Martinez & Richters, 1993). Following an explosion of community violence during the 1980's, the 1990 homicide rate in seven of the nation's largest cities increased by an average of approximately 25% (Richters & Martinez, 1993). While initial interest in exposure to violence as a health concern arose in response to damage to the physical well-being of victims, there is currently an increasing realization of the psychological impact of chronic exposure to violence. Perhaps no other community has been affected by violent trends as greatly as the African-American community. Bell and Jenkins (1993) reported that the rate of homicide among African-Americans may be as great as seven times that of European-Americans and that for African-Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 it represents the leading cause of death. Far more compelling, however, is the fact that there are approximately 100 assaults per homicide. Though the rate of homicide is astonishing, near lethal violence and other criminal acts may exact their greatest toll by chronically exposing children and their families to traumatic stress. Violent acts frequently occur in public settings, undermining the ability of individuals in violent communities to minimize their exposure rates. As Lorion & Saltzman (1993) note, "Increasingly violence is experienced in some settings as a nearly continuous series of random and threatening events" (p.55). Adolescent's exposure to violence may be further compounded by violence within the family (Osofsky, Wewer, Hann, & Fick, 1993), reexperience of the traumatic event through recurrent traumatic dreams (Pynoos & Nader, 1988), and violence on television (Osofsky et al., 1993).
Children demonstrate reactions to traumatic violence similar to that of adults (Lorion & Saltzman, 1993). Such reactions may include depression, anxiety/intrusive thoughts, sleep problems (Martinez & Richters, 1993), acute PTSD symptoms (Pynoos & Nader, 1988), generalized desensitization to threat and consequences of violence, and pursuit of opportunity for risk taking and danger (Lorion & Saltzman, 1993).
It should be noted that all exposure to violence is not equal. In a review of the literature on community violence, Lorion & Saltzman (1993) note that the impact of these experiences have been shown to demonstrate differential effects as a function of the victim's proximity to the incident, potential harmfulness, relationship to those involved, and repeated traumatic exposure . Furthermore, males and females appear to respond to exposure to violence in distinct ways. Finally, it is also possible for children to experience "secondary traumatization" (Lyons, p.351). That is, some children may exhibit emotional or behavioral reactions to traumatic events which they have heard about, but not personally witnessed or experienced.
Despite differences in the ways in which children respond to traumatic exposure, it is clear that these experiences have significant and cumulative effects upon both witnesses and survivors (Lyons, 1987). Many children exposed to traumatic events exhibit clinically significant levels of a cluster of symptoms identified as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This presentation will discuss the ways in which children exposed to chronic violence may present
on your line, clinic, or center. The importance of utilizing multimethod evaluations to assess the
presence of PTSD will then be presented. Finally, we will discuss the need for increased
psychological and social resources in chronically violent neighborhoods.