2020 Online Salon
A Comic Guide to Understanding Hypervigilance

Project Details
- Entrant Name: Caitlin Chang
- Membership Type: Student Submission
- Address: Toronto, Ontario Canada
- Client: Dr. Shelley Wall
- Copyright: 2020 Caitlin Chang
- Medium/software used: Adobe Photoshop
- Final presentation format: Print, 13 pages x A4, folded in half
- Primary Audience: Educated lay audience
Project Description
Hypervigilance is a common symptom of people with anxiety disorders and/or a history of trauma. It is a state of heightened alertness, where one is ceaselessly and exhaustively on the lookout for threat while overlooking signs of safety. Psychoeducation and therapy often includes some basic neuroanatomy. However, the visuospatial learning component of neuroanatomy is often challenging to understand. The goal of this comic is to provide a fun and memorable visual metaphor (using Dr. Daniel Siegel’s hand-model of the brain) to explain our basic neuroanatomy and how it can relate to our very human experiences of hypervigilance.
Please find the full comic here.