How can a disease respect national borders? There is a curious alteration that occurs only in Sweden and appears in children and adolescents. This phenomenon is described as a somatic and dissociative reaction to the risk of re-exposure to trauma, which has been analyzed being involved in the return to the country of origin or having suffered a considerable threat to the survival of their loved ones and themselves same. In this Psychology-Online article we explain relevant data about this unique pathology that has worried many immigrant parents for years: what is resignation syndrome, its symptoms, causes and treatment.
The resignation syndrome is characterized by a catatonia or coma that can last from a few months to years. This pathology that curiously affects mostly and almost in a limited way children and adolescents of families who have sought migratory asylum, in geographical areas of Sweden.
The risk groups continue to be children from particular geographic areas: immigrants to Nordic lands. So far no case is known outside of this population, and this is what makes it of considerable interest to psychiatric health researchers.
It has been observed that the majority of cases present between 7 and 19 years old, in children and adolescents who are previously relatively well adjusted to their new environment, but In addition to age, they also have another aspect in common: exposure to situations that may result threatening to survival of the subject and of her family.
These children, in addition to having gone through migration situation and the heartbreaking vicissitudes that it entails, most of them and their family have been pressured to leave their country of origin due to the threat of mafias, extortion, kidnapping, abuse and assaults.
The symptoms are insidious, that is, the catatonic state is gradual or progressive. It begins slowly and its prodromal phase does not show symptoms or signs that can be observed by others. Thus, the person and the family are not aware that the syndrome is occurring.
Here are some of its symptoms detailed in a short list:
- Inaction or known as stupor in psychiatry (characterized by an absence of spontaneous and reactive movements).
- Muscle laxity
- Sensory and interactive isolation from the world.
- Stop eating, drinking and walking and therefore very high risk of starvation.
- Mutism, that is, a condition where the subject is capable (anatomically and physiologically speaking) of expressing himself verbally but stops doing so suddenly.
- Loss of sphincter control.
- Subjects' eyes are kept closed
- Catatonic state.
- Neurologically, everything works well in these people.
- They appear to be asleep in an uninterrupted sleep.
Among the causes of the resignation syndrome, in addition to the social situation of the child, we must also consider the psychological processes that it entails.
Social situation
The process that leads to the symptoms of resignation syndrome is generated after the following circumstances in the child's life:
- Exposure to situations that may result threatening to survival of the subject (assaults, kidnappings, sexual assaults, abuse).
- Go through a process of migration due to the pressure of a conflict in their home country.
- Refusal of residence to the country to which they emigrated.
- They have witnessed extreme violence (often against their parents), especially where the life of the primary support network has been endangered and especially by their fellow humans.
- They have witnessed torture, violence and abuse to your primary support network.
Excision of the Self
Teresa Sánchez (2020) in her article "Syndrome of resignation, migratory trauma, extreme somatization and dissociation" gives us a very interesting hypothesis about the cause of resignation syndrome, detailing what happens in the ego through the reading of different authors involved in the theme. The author describes how the Self suffers a split due to the migration situation, which may be related to the etiology of this syndrome. I consider essential for interested professionals, the analysis of the resignation syndrome as a physiological process that has psychological consequences, and not just the glimpse of a compendium of the etiopathogenesis.
Alteration of the prefrontal and dorsolateral cortex of the brain
Another hypothesis of its cause is the alteration that occurs in the brain proposed by Van der Kolk (2015):
- The thalamus it mixes all the information of our perceptions and thus prepares an autobiographical set, an integrated and coherent experience.
- While the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of our brain tells us how much of our current experience is related to the past and how it can affect our future. Knowing that whatever is happening has a beginning, an ending, and an end (which will come to an end sooner or later) makes most experiences tolerable.
How is this related to the cause of resignation syndrome? For Van der Kolk situations become intolerable when they seem endlessAnd trauma is the ultimate experience of that feeling that "it will last forever." If the thalamus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are altered, the trauma will not be remembered as a story, a story with a beginning, an end, and an end, but as isolated sensory footprints: images, kinesthetic sensations, sounds and smells.
The thalamus helps us distinguish between sensory information that is relevant and information that can be ignored with tranquility, acting as a filter in normal situations, but people with resignation syndrome could like in a post traumatic stress disorder have the gates of this filter fully open. Lacking filters, they suffer a constant emotional overload and to be able to face it they try to disconnect - paralyzing -.
This, in summary, can cause that catatonic state in minors of which no specific anatomical, physiological and psychological etiologies are recognized until now.
Providing support or some type of intervention to these children goes beyond helping them find words to describe what has happened to them. The act of telling the story does not necessarily modify the physical responses of hyper alertness that he has had for a long time in preparation for bloody or dire and real adventures. The body must also learn that the danger has passed and that you can live in the reality of your present.
The human being presents three types of response to any threat to survival:
- Struggle.
- Flight.
- Paralysis.
The minors have used the first two mechanisms to survive, which have an active characteristic. They fought against the threat by screaming and kicking, then fled of their country of origin and, faced with the state of defenselessness in a new environment and with the threat of being deported, they can do nothing more than try paralyze and try to survive like this.
For this reason, treatment should be oriented towards a physiological and psychological understanding of trauma. In these articles we explain what is a trauma Y how to overcome psychological trauma.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Resignation syndrome: what it is, symptoms, causes and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotional and behavioral disorders.
Resignation syndrome: what it is, symptoms, causes and treatment
