Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is an Anxiety Disorder that may occur after a person experiences a highly traumatic event that involves death, serious injury, or threat to the physical integrity of themselves or others. A person may develop PTSD from experiencing trauma, witnessing trauma, or hearing trauma. These traumatic events cause intense fear, helplessness, or horror for the person. Examples of traumatic events include violent personal assault, accidents, military combat, and natural or human-caused disasters. After these events occur a person who develops PTSD will continue to struggle with processing the event and possibly continue to re-experience the event, avoid all situations or people that remind them of the event, and display excessive emotion for over a month. PTSD creates significant impairment in the daily lives who
Symptoms include:
- Re-experience of the traumatic event
- Recurring and intrusive recollections of the event that may be experienced in the form of flashbacks, hallucinations, or nightmares.
- Great psychological and physiological distress is experienced when reminded (by objects, situations, people, etc) of the event.
- Efforts are taken to persistently avoid experiences that remind the person of the traumatic event. Thoughts, feelings, conversations, activities, places or people that remind the person of the trauma are avoided.
- For some, a general lack of responsiveness exists that was not present before the trauma. They may be unable to recall the trauma, show limited emotion, have a lack of interest or hope for the future, seem detached from others, and no longer seem interested in formerly important activities.
- These symptoms were not present prior to the traumatic event and include difficulty falling and staying asleep, difficulty concentrating, outburst of anger or irritability, exaggerated responses to startling events, and becoming highly alert and anxious.
- panic attacks
- physical symptoms
- feelings of mistrust
- substance abuse
- relationship problems
- depression
- suicidal thoughts
RELATED LINKS:
- Treatment
- Current Research
- Anxiety Disorders
- Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents
* - As defined by the DSM-IV, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Alliance on
Mental Illness.
