Abstract

Psychopathological conditions resulting from traumatic events have increasingly received neuroscientific interpretations, reducing the complexity of devastating human experiences to the disturbed functioning of neurophysiological systems attributed to stress responses. This narrative review explores some epistemological conditions essential to fashioning a neuroscientific theory of traumatic stress, showing the solidarity it maintains with evolutionary theory and with research on classical conditioning in animals. We hope this work can highlight some of the ethical repercussions in neglecting social and cultural factors when interpreting secondary trauma phenomena.

Keywords:
psychological trauma; post-traumatic stress; classic conditioning; neurosciences