(Last Updated On: March 24, 2022)

SCARSSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS.™ Psychology of ScamsPsychology Of Scams Psychology Of Scams is the study of the psychological or emotional effects of scams or financial fraud on victims of these crimes. It helps victims to better understand the impact of scams on them personally or on others. To find the SCARS articles on the Psychology of Scams, use the search option to enter the term and find them.: Repeating The ScamScam A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime -  is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. – Engaging In Risky BehaviorBehavior   Behavior / Behavioral Actions Otherwise known as habits, behavior or behavioral actions are strategies to help prevent online exploitation that target behavior, such as social engineering of victims. Changing your behavior is the ONLY effective means to reduce or prevent scams. Over & Over

During the formative years of contemporary psychiatry, much attention was paid to the continuing role of past traumatic experiences on the current lives of people. Charcot, Janet, and Freud all noted that fragmented memories of traumatic events dominated the mental life of many of their patient and built their theories about the nature and treatment of psychopathology on this recognition.

Janet thought that traumatic memories of traumatic events persist as unassimilated fixed ideas that act as foci for the development of alternate states of consciousness, including dissociative phenomena, such as fugue states, amnesias, and chronic states of helplessness and depression.

Unbidden memories of the traumaTrauma Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety or other emotional shocks, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can result in trauma, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized. Trauma requires treatment, either through counseling or therapy or through trauma-oriented support programs, such as those offered by SCARS. may return as physical sensations, horrific images or nightmares, behavioral reenactments, or a combination of these. Janet showed how traumatized
individuals become fixated on the trauma: difficulties in assimilating subsequent experiences as well. It is “as if their personality development has stopped at a certain point and cannot expand anymore by the addition or assimilation of new elements.”

Freud independently came to similar conclusions. Initially, he thought all hysterical symptoms were caused by childhood sexual “seduction” of which unconscious memories were activated when during adolescence, a person was exposed to situations reminiscent of the original trauma. The trauma permanently disturbed
the capacity to deal with other challenges, and the victim who did not integrate the trauma was doomed to “repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience in instead or . . . remembering it as something belonging to the past.”

In the article below, the author shows how the trauma is repeated on behavioral, emotional, physiologic, and neuroendocrinological levels, whose confluence explains the diversity of repetition phenomena.

Many traumatized people expose themselves, seemingly compulsively, to situations reminiscent of the original trauma. These behavioral reenactments are rarely consciously understood to be related to earlier life experiences. This “repetition compulsion” has received surprisingly little systematic exploration during the 70 years since its discovery, though it is regularly described in the clinical literature.

Freud thought that the aim of repetition was to gain mastery, but clinical experience has shown that this rarely happens; instead, repetition causes further suffering for the victims or for people in their surroundings.

Over the decades, the science of psychology and the understanding of trauma has advanced incredibly. But in our history of working with scam victims, we have struggled to understand the psychology of the recidivism and proclivity of continued risk-taking after the trauma of a scam – why some people repeatedly put themselves out there to be scammed over and over. This may be an explanation that victims can understand and use to help guide them away from these repetitive and destructive behaviors.

Part of the reason for sharing this information is to help all victims and their families understand that scam, especially romance scam trauma can have profound and lasting effects on the victim. It is very important that these issues are addressed from a healthcare perspective and that every victim seeks out trauma counselingCounseling Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes. A mental health counselor (MHC), or counselor, is a person who works with individuals and groups to promote optimum mental and emotional health. Such persons may help individuals deal with issues associated with addiction and substance abuse; family, parenting, and marital problems; stress management; self-esteem; and aging. They may also work with "Social Workers", "Psychiatrists", and "Psychologists". SCARS does not provide mental health counseling. or therapy to successfully recover their future!

 

The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma

Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism
By Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD

Compulsion_to_Repeat

 

TAGS: SCARS, Important Article, Information About Scams, Anti-Scam, Scams, Scammers, Fraudsters, Cybercrime, Crybercriminals, Romance Scams, Scam Victims, Re-enactment, Revictimization, Compulsion to Repeat, Repeating the Trauma, Scam Repetition, Scam Recidivism

 

 

 

 

 

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