Attachment and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Military Personnel: Characterization of the French Military Population, Exploration of Biopsychosocial Factors, and Study of the Impact of Security Priming on Emotional Contagion Capacities

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a pathology that impairs the quality of life of sufferers. In military personnel, it can lead to military incapacity. This psychopathology is characterized by confrontation with one or more traumatic events in the individual's life history. Symptoms include cognitive and mood disorders, avoidance, hyperactivation (hypervigilance and anger) and intrusions (flashbacks and nightmares).

Studies show that the prevalence of PTSD in military personnel fluctuates considerably from one situation to another (pre-deployment/post-deployment, etc.). In these at-risk populations, the often more complex PTSD clinic may also account for the heterogeneity of prevalences observed. Nevertheless, PTSD tends to become chronic in military personnel, making it particularly difficult to return to a "previous" state. In French casualties, beyond the symptoms already mentioned, complaints focus on difficulties in social interaction situations involving others in social life (attachment style to others) and in everyday life (public transport, supermarket shopping, social interactions, presence of crowds...).

In the context of post-traumatic stress disorder, we would like to explore the processes of social cognition that enable people to interact in their environment, in relation to biological, psychosocial and physiological variables that may constitute risk or maintenance factors for the pathology.