Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life or well-being. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events such as accidents, violence, sexual assault, terror, or sensory overload.
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is a stress-related mental disorder generally occurring in response to complex traumas, i.e. commonly prolonged or repetitive exposures to a series of traumatic events, within which individuals perceive little or no chance to escape.
Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, as equals to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis.
Gender is correlated with the prevalence of certain mental disorders, including depression, anxiety and somatic complaints. For example, women are more likely to be diagnosed with major depression, while men are more likely to be diagnosed with substance abuse and antisocial personality disorder. There are no marked gender differences in the diagnosis rates of disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Men are at risk to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to past violent experiences such as accidents, wars and witnessing death, and women are diagnosed with PTSD at higher rates due to experiences with sexual assault, rape and child sexual abuse. Nonbinary or genderqueer identification describes people who do not identify as either male or female. People who identify as nonbinary or gender queer show increased risk for depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. People who identify as transgender demonstrate increased risk for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Critical incident stress management (CISM) was a controversial, non-empirical, adaptive, short-term psychological helping-process that focused solely on an immediate and identifiable problem. It included pre-incident preparedness to acute crisis management through post-crisis follow-up. Its purpose was to enable people to return to their daily routine more quickly and with less likelihood of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, after researchers showed that debriefing techniques did not decrease rates of PTSD, CISM is now seldom used and has largely been replaced with immediate psychological care techniques that do not use debriefing such as those endorsed by the CDC, Red Cross, WHO, American Psychological Association and National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (NC-PTSD). Responsible practioners who still use CISM must eliminate debriefing steps in order to remain compliant with best practices and clinical guidelines.
A trauma trigger is a psychological stimulus that prompts involuntary recall of a previous traumatic experience. The stimulus itself need not be frightening or traumatic and may be only indirectly or superficially reminiscent of an earlier traumatic incident, such as a scent or a piece of clothing. Triggers can be subtle, individual, and difficult for others to predict. A trauma trigger may also be called a trauma stimulus, a trauma stressor or a trauma reminder.
Incident stress is a condition caused by acute stress which overwhelms a staff person trained to deal with critical incidents such as within the line of duty for first responders, EMTs, and other similar personnel. If not recognized and treated at onset, incident stress can lead to more serious effects of posttraumatic stress disorder.
James Douglas Bremner is an American physician, researcher, and writer based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has conducted research on posttraumatic stress disorder and the relationship between depression and suicide and the acne drug Accutane.
Jon Elhai is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Toledo. Elhai is known for being an expert in the assessment and diagnosis of Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), forensic psychological assessment of PTSD, and detection of fabricated/malingered PTSD; as well as in internet addictions.
The Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) is an organization offering training for behavioral health professionals who provide mental health services unique to the experience of deployment in the United States Armed Forces for active-duty military service members, veterans and their families. CDP is headquartered at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland, and is funded by the United States Department of Defense.
Psychological first aid (PFA) is a technique designed to reduce the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was developed by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (NC-PTSD), a section of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, in 2006. It has been endorsed and used by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), the American Psychological Association (APA) and many others. It was developed in a two-day intensive collaboration, involving more than 25 disaster mental health researchers, an online survey of the first cohort that used PFA and repeated reviews of the draft.
Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH is a medical documentary series which premiered on British Columbia's Knowledge Network on January 21, 2014. It follows doctors, nurses and staff at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) as they cope with real patients from the Greater Vancouver Regional District. VGH is the second largest hospital in Canada and British Columbia's only level I trauma centre. Stories of stabbings, car accidents, heart attacks, and life-threatening disease are shown alongside everyday cuts and sprains, drunks, and other minor cases, and episodes contain graphic images of wounds, blood, and/or routine and invasive medical procedures.
A moral injury is an injury to an individual's moral conscience and values resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression on the part of themselves or others. It produces profound feelings of guilt or shame, moral disorientation, and societal alienation. In some cases it may cause a sense of betrayal and anger toward colleagues, commanders, the organization, politics, or society at large.
Anna B. Baranowsky is a Canadian Clinical Psychologist and the founder and CEO of the Traumatology Institute (TI). She works with trauma survivors and those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on post-traumatic growth and recovery. Baranowsky also assists organizations and professionals who help trauma survivors. The mandate of the Traumatology Institute is to raise awareness about Post-Traumatic Stress and trauma informed care options.
Richard Allan Bryant is an Australian medical scientist. He is Scientia Professor of Psychology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and director of the UNSW Traumatic Stress Clinic, based at UNSW and Westmead Institute for Medical Research. His main areas of research are posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and prolonged grief disorder. On 13 June 2016 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), for eminent service to medical research in the field of psychotraumatology, as a psychologist and author, to the study of Indigenous mental health, as an advisor to a range of government and international organisations, and to professional societies.
Operational stress injury or OSI is a non-clinical, non-medical term referring to a persistent psychological difficulty caused by traumatic experiences or prolonged high stress or fatigue during service as a military member or first responder. The term does not replace any individual diagnoses or disorders, but rather describes a category of mental health concerns linked to the particular challenges that these military members or first responders encounter in their service. There is not yet a single fixed definition. The term was first conceptualized within the Canadian Armed Forces to help foster understanding of the broader mental health challenges faced by military members who have been impacted by traumatic experiences and who face difficulty as a result. OSI encompasses a number of the diagnoses found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) classification system, with the common thread being a linkage to the operational experiences of the afflicted. The term has gained traction outside of the military community as an appropriate way to describe similar challenges suffered by those whose work regularly exposes them to trauma, particularly front line emergency first responders such as but not limited to police, firefighters, paramedics, correctional officers, and emergency dispatchers. The term, at present mostly used within Canada, is increasingly significant in the development of legislation, policy, treatments and benefits in the military and first responder communities.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can affect about 3.6% of the U.S. population each year, and 6.8% of the U.S. population over a lifetime. 8.4% of people in the U.S. are diagnosed with substance use disorders (SUD). Of those with a diagnosis of PTSD, a co-occurring, or comorbid diagnosis of a SUD is present in 20–35% of that clinical population.
Trauma in first responders refers to the psychological trauma experienced by first responders, such as police officers, firefighters, and paramedics, often as a result of events experienced in their line of work. The nature of a first responder's occupation continuously puts them in harm's way and regularly exposes them to traumatic situations, such as people who have been harmed, injured, or killed.
Kevin Eastwood is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and film and television producer. He is best known for directing the CBC Television documentaries Humboldt: The New Season and After the Sirens and the Knowledge Network series Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH and British Columbia: An Untold History. His credits as a producer include the movies Fido, Preggoland and The Delicate Art of Parking, the television series The Romeo Section, and the documentaries Haida Modern, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World and Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson.
