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Hypervigilance is an "enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats."^[1] It may feel like paranoia, but it is not the same. Also known as HVS, Hypervigilance Syndrome, can be experienced while extremely irritated. HVS ^[2]

Symptomologies

Hypervigilance is a symptom of a number of stress-related disorders including:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder,
• Combat stress reaction,
• Urban survival syndrome,
• Mean World Syndrome
• Anxiety disorder

It is manifested in victims of domestic violence and stalking. It is also seen as an aspect of the psychological condition of codependence, and as needing treatment in victims of torture. Benzodiazepine withdrawal can also induce hyperactivity.

Hypervigilance versus paranoia

Hypervigilance encompasses symptoms such as:^[3]

1. "is a response to an external event (violence, accident, disaster, violation, intrusion, bullying, etc) and therefore an injury"
2. "wears off (gets better), albeit slowly, when the person is out of and away from the situation which was the cause"
3. "the hypervigilant person is acutely aware of their hypervigilance, and will easily articulate their fear, albeit using the incorrect but popularised word 'paranoia'"

While paranoia has similar, but different, symptoms including:

1. "paranoia is a form of mental illness; the cause is thought to be internal, eg a minor variation in the balance of brain chemistry"
2. "paranoia tends to endure and to not get better of its own accord"
3. "the paranoiac will not admit to feeling paranoid, as they cannot see their paranoia"

See also

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Vigilance

References

External links

• What Means Hypervigilance? at Riley Down Under: Surviving PTSD And Getting On With Life
• "Hypervigilance" at Hypnosense
• "Do you know signs of hypervigilance?" at Seattle PI
• "Conditions for hypervigilance" at University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC)
• "Hypervigilance & Anxiety" at Help4Trauma.org
• "Symptoms"
• "An examination of hypervigilance for external threat in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder and individuals with persecutory delusions using visual scan paths"

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• This page was last modified on 3 August 2008, at 18:25.

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