Table of contents:
- What is resignation syndrome
- Symptoms of learned resignation syndrome
- Causes of learned resignation syndrome
- Social situation
- Excision of the Self
- Alteration of the prefrontal and dorsolateral cortex of the brain
- Treatment of learned resignation syndrome
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 dissociative and somatic reaction to the risk of re-exposure to trauma, which has been analyzed as 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. In this Psychology-Online article we explain relevant data about this unique pathology that has worried many immigrant parents for years: what is the resignation syndrome, its symptoms, causes and treatment.
You may also be interested in: Aggression in adolescents: causes and treatment Index- What is resignation syndrome
- Symptoms of learned resignation syndrome
- Causes of learned resignation syndrome
- Treatment of learned resignation syndrome
What is resignation syndrome
The resignation syndrome is characterized by a state of catatonia or coma that can last between a few months and even years. This pathology that curiously affects mostly and almost in a limited way children and adolescents of families that have sought migratory asylum, in geographical areas of Sweden.
The risk groups continue to be children from particular geographical 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 occur between the ages of 7 and 19, 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 be threatening to the survival of the subject and his family.
These children, in addition to having gone through the situation of migration and the harrowing vicissitudes that it entails, most of them and their families have been pressured to leave their country of origin due to the threat of mafias, extortion, kidnapping, abuse and aggression..
Symptoms of learned resignation syndrome
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 to say a condition in which 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.
Causes of learned resignation syndrome
Among the causes of the resignation syndrome, in addition to the social situation of the boy or girl, 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 be threatening to the survival of the subject (assaults, kidnappings, sexual assaults, abuse).
- Go through a migration process due to the pressure of a conflict in their country of origin.
- Refusal to reside in 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 of their primary support network.
Excision of the Self
Teresa Sánchez (2020) in her article "Syndrome of resignation, migratory trauma, extreme somatization and dissociation" provides us with 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 subject. The author describes how the ego 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 mixes all the information from 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 end, 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 endless, and 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 traces: images, kinesthetic sensations, sounds, and smells.
The thalamus helps us distinguish between sensory information that is relevant and information that can be safely ignored, acting as a filter in normal situations, but people with resignation syndrome could, as in post-traumatic stress disorder, have the floodgates of this filter fully open. Lacking filters, they suffer a constant emotional overload and in order to cope they try to disconnect - paralyzing themselves -.
This, in summary, can cause this catatonic state in minors, of which no specific anatomical, physiological and psychological etiologies have been recognized to date.
Treatment of learned resignation syndrome
Providing support or some type of intervention to these minors 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 hyper-alert responses that he has had for a long time to prepare for bloody or dire and real adventures. The body must also learn that the danger is past and that it can live in the reality of its present.
The human being presents three types of response to any threat to survival:
- Fight.
- Flight.
- Paralysis.
The minors have used the first two mechanisms to survive, which have an active characteristic. They fought the threat by screaming and kicking, then fled their home country and, faced with the state of helplessness in a new environment and the threat of deportation, they can do nothing but try to paralyze themselves and try to survive like this.
For this reason, treatment must be oriented towards a physiological and psychological understanding of the trauma. In these articles we explain what trauma is and 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.
Bibliography- Besser van der Kolk. (2015). The body keeps score. Editorial Eleftheria.
- Teresa Sanchez Sanchez. (2020). Resignation syndrome. Extreme migratory trauma, somatization and dissociation. Forum Society of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.