Reine Flore Bouyap
National Center for Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities, Cameroon
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Neurochem Neuropharm
The question of the link between trauma and addiction is currently the subject of numerous studies in psychopathology, epidemiology and even neurobiology. Posttraumatic stress disorder results in reliving situations experienced as traumatic in the past, anxiety, irritability or even insomnia. Frequently, victimized patients try to alleviate these disorders through addiction of any form. It is estimated that up to 60% of people with addiction also have post-traumatic stress disorder. From this perspective, treating the two syndromes simultaneously could be very beneficial for the patient. As a result, the clinical management of addictive pathologies requires proper consideration of the patient's mental state, which could be the gateway to discovering the existence of a trauma that has not been resolved and which implicitly disrupts the psychic and behavioral life of the subject. Faced with this observation, we have in our integrated daily clinical practice an integral part of adaptive information processing (AID) through EMDR therapy. Concretely, we passed the PCL 5 to 21 (twenty-one) people consulting for an addiction problem (alcoholism (3), cannabis (12), gambling (4) and sex (4). patients obtained a score above 38, some of them presented with complex trauma. We were able to treat the different cases of addiction between 10 and 25 sessions of EMDR. This is how we were able to understand the comorbidity between PTSD and addiction.
Reine Flore Bouyap, clinical psychologist at the CNRPH, EMDR level 2 psychotherapist at the Institut Français d’ EMDR and EMDR Europe, Behavioral Cognitive Therapist (BCT) in training. She is a Ph.D student in clinical and psychopathology at the University of Yaounde I. Research theme focuses on the burden of family caregivers of Alzheimer's patients and adjustment strategies. Has worked for 06 years with children with special needs, 04 months with Central African refugees, works at the CNRPH since 2016 with accident victims, with parents associations of children with disabilities.
