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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a condition brought on by an intensely traumatic experience that had the potential of threatening your life or the life of those around you. This disorder was first discovered in wartime, particularly combat situations, and was known as “Shell Shock”. DSM IV characterizes PTSD as a disorder caused by an event where a person "experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others".
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the psychological reaction following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR (DSM-IV-TR) the “experience must involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury, or a threat to physical and/or psychological integrity”. However, “for children, sexually traumatic events may include developmentally inappropriate sexual experiences with or without threatened or actual violence or injury”.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Acute and Long-Term Responses to Trauma and Disaster provides clinicians, researchers, and policy makers with an examination of current advances in research and treatment by recognized experts at the cutting edge of innovation. This timely book incorporates DSM-IV criteria and the new diagnostic category acute stress disorder, which emphasizes the breadth of posttraumatic stress symptoms and disorders and the importance of distinguishing between acute and long-term responses to traumatic events. Individual chapters go beyond PTSD to examine other posttraumatic disorders and responses, the mechanisms of transmission of posttraumatic stress, and its effects on behavior and health in natural and societal disasters and traumas, including war. This volume pays particular attention to the array of psychiatric responses to trauma, including PTSD and the unfolding of illness and recovery over time. Posttraumatic responses are considered across individual, group, family, and community perspectives and from the vantage point of developmental systems from childhood to older adult life.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder can occur at any age, including childhood. Symptoms usually begin within the first 3 months after the trauma, although there may be a delay of months, or even years, before symptoms appear. Frequently, the disturbance initially meets criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (see p. 429) in the immediate aftermath of the trauma. The symptoms of the disorder and the relative predominance of reexperiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms may vary over time. Duration of the symptoms varies, with complete recovery occurring within 3 months in approximately half of cases, with many others having persisting symptoms for longer than 12 months after the trauma.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was not recognized as a formal diagnosis in the psychiatric nomenclature until 1980. Since then understanding of the disorder has grown as old myths about trauma were dispelled and new factors were explored. However, while enormous advances have been made in understanding the effects of psychological trauma, there is significant variation among individuals, traumatic events, and the context in which the events occur. Diagnosing and treating PTSD ... often remains an extremely complex matter.1
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New research into Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is leading to a better understanding of its underlying neurobiology, risk factors and long-term implications. The findings are published in a recent issue of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and were revealed at a conference jointly sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder