Differences in HPA Axis Reactivity to Intimacy in Women With & Without Histories of Sexual Trauma
BACKGROUND:
Sexual
trauma can lead to longstanding effects on individuals' intimacy functioning.
The current study aimed to assess hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis
functioning (i.e., cortisol reactivity) prior to (-5min), during (+15, +30,
+45min), and following (+60min) an experimental manipulation of emotional
closeness in a sample of women survivors of sexual trauma with varying levels
of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology versus controls.
METHODS:
Participants
included 50 women, which were divided into 2 groups on the basis of a
structured clinical interview: 26 women with a history of sexual trauma with
and without PTSD (sexual trauma group), and 24 women without a history of
sexual trauma or PTSD (controls). Participants came into the lab and
participated in a 45min emotional closeness exercise with a male confederate
and completed self-report questionnaires of closeness, state
anxiety/depression, and cortisol assays at the aforementioned time points.
RESULTS:
Women
with a history of sexual trauma exhibited a blunted cortisol response and
greater anxious mood in reaction to the intimacy induction task compared to
controls. Results also demonstrated that, unexpectedly, PTSD symptom severity
scores among sexual trauma survivors were not associated with differential
cortisol responding to the task compared to controls.
CONCLUSIONS:
Adaptive
responses to stress are characterized by a relatively rapid cortisol increase
followed by a steady decline. The results of this study demonstrated that women
with a history of sexual trauma, in contrast, displayed a blunted cortisol
response to an intimacy induction task. Both controls and women with a history
of sexual trauma reported increased feelings of closeness to the male
confederate in response to the intimacy induction task, suggesting that
survivors were able to achieve similar adaptive feelings of intimacy when
provided with the right conditions.
- 1VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, 500 Foothill Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84108, USA. Electronic address: amber.martinson@va.gov.
- 2Mayo Clinic, 200 First St. SW, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA.
- 3University of Maine, 301 Little Hall, Orono, Maine 04469, USA.
- Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2015 Dec 24;65:118-126. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.12.025
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