Post-traumatic stress disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a term for the psychological consequences of exposure to or confrontation with stressful experiences, which involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury or a threat to physical integrity and which the person found highly traumatic. It is occasionally called post-traumatic stress reaction, to emphasize that it is a fairly normal result of a traumatic experience, rather than a manifestation of a pre-existing psychological weakness on the part of the patient.

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Symptoms can include reexperiencing phenomena such as nightmares and flashbacks, emotional detachment or numbing of feelings (emotional self-mortification) combined with regular hyperarousal and possibly sleep abnormalities (insomnia), avoidance of reminders and extreme distress when exposed to the reminders ("triggers"), with irritability and excessive startle.

Related Topics:
Nightmare - Flashback - Emotional detachment - Hyperarousal - Insomnia - Avoidance - Trigger

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Experiences likely to induce the condition include childhood physical/emotional or sexual abuse, adult's experiences of rape, war and combat exposure, violent attacks, natural catastrophes, and life-threatening complications at childbirth (and perhaps its accompanying exhaustion). For most people, the emotional effects of traumatic events will tend to subside after several months. If they last longer than that then consideration should be given to diagnosing a psychiatric disorder. Most people who experience traumatic events will not develop PTSD. PTSD is primarily an anxiety disorder and should not be confused with normal grief and adjustment after traumatic events. There is also the possibility of simultaneous suffering of other psychiatric disorders (i.e. co-morbidity).

Related Topics:
Abuse - Rape - War - Combat - Childbirth - Anxiety disorder

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PTSD may have a delayed onset of years or even decades and may be triggered by even a specific body movement (if the trauma was stored in the procedural memory mainly), or by another stressful event such as the death of a family member or someone else close, or by the diagnosis of a life-threatening medical condition. Once PTSD reaches the criteria for diagnosis the untreated course is generally for some worsening and then stability of the level of symptomatology over many years.

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