What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
The sad reality of our current society is that it is important to be able to distinguish the difference between experiencing trauma and developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.
In order to be diagnosed with PTSD a person needs exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence by either directly experiencing the traumatic event, witnessing the event as it occurred to someone else or learning that the traumatic event occurred to a close family member or friend, or lastly experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to the grisly details of traumatic events.
An example of this is found with first responders such as police officers repeatedly being exposed to child abuse.
Exposure along though is not enough to garner the diagnosis: “it’s not only about what happened, it’s also about what happened next.”
There are four other categories of symptoms that must be present: intrusion symptoms, avoidance symptoms, cognitive symptoms, and finally arousal symptoms.
Watch other videos in this Psych in 60 series to learn more about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and leave your questions in the comments below!