What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Post traumatic stress disorder involves a maladaptive response to exposure to events involving death, bodily harm, or potential for serious harm, either by directly experiencing, witnessing, learning about such an event experienced by a close friend or loved one, or repeatedly hearing about distressing details of such an event. As a result, the individual may experience recurrent intrusive memories of the trauma, upsetting dreams or nightmares, dissociation (e.g., flashbacks or feeling as though the event is occurring again), distress when exposed to cues associated with the trauma, and/or physiological activation or strong bodily reactions to reminders of the event. Because of this distress, the individual engages in avoidance behaviors in an attempt to avoid thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and memories of the event as well as avoidance of people, places, objects, or situations that serve as reminders of the event.

Cognitive changes, such as the inability to remember aspects of the trauma, negative self-evaluation, self-blame, negative emotional state/mood, loss of interest in activities, feeling of being detached from others, an inability to experience positive emotions, irritability or aggression, impulsivity or self-destructive behavior, hypervigilance, sleep disturbance, and difficulty concentrating are common. Together, this response to trauma causes significant distress and/or impairment to the individual’s life.