Acute reaction to stress – forensic implications

Abstract

Summary: The choice of theme lies in the importance of stress in people’s daily lives, representing a response of the body to the action of physical agents (sound, light, temperature), chemical (radiation, pollution), biological (disease, lack of food, etc.) or psychic (excess or lack of activity, social interactions, mood, etc.). Thus, each individual reacts differently to some stressors. The assessment of the stressful potential of a situation is the objective of the primary assessment, and the evaluation of the adaptive resources available to the subject is subject to secondary evaluation. The relationship between stressor and reaction depends on primary and secondary assessment. Modern studies reveal that the psychosomatic health of the human person is more closely dependent on the mechanisms of control or adaptation to stress than on the intensity and forms of stress to which he is subjected. Adaptation to stress causes mechanisms, some mechanisms are intuitive, and others are learned in a psychological intervention. Acute stress refers to an immediate response of the human body to an event, which is perceived as an urgent challenge that requires activation of coping mechanisms. As a process, the instinct of survival and adaptation to the environment is activated, thus developing those mechanisms of adaptation and defense. Acute stress can occur in serious situations, accidents, crimes, situations that can endanger life, resulting in the person suffering from emotional and physical disorders (post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder) with cognitive and physical implications. People with acute stress have a decrease in emotional reactivity, they feel guilty about completing tasks and find it very difficult to experience pleasure even if they perform activities that they previously considered pleasurable. The traumatic event is expressed as persistent, and most of the time the individual will try to avoid everything that we have in trauma tests (whether we are talking about people, places or activities).