Neurosis is a term mainly used today by followers of Freudian thinking to describe mental disorders caused by past anxiety, often that has been repressed. In recent history, the term has been used to refer to anxiety-related conditions more generally.
Anxiety disorders are a cluster of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physical and cognitive symptoms, such as restlessness, irritability, easy fatigue, difficulty concentrating, increased heart rate, chest pain, abdominal pain, and a variety of other symptoms that may vary based on the individual.
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.
In medicine, traumatology is the study of wounds and injuries caused by accidents or violence to a person, and the surgical therapy and repair of the damage. Traumatology is a branch of medicine. It is often considered a subset of surgery and in countries without the specialty of trauma surgery it is most often a sub-specialty to orthopedic surgery. Traumatology may also be known as accident surgery.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events that are outside the normal range of human experiences, with extreme examples being violence, rape, or a terrorist attack. The event must be understood by the affected person as directly threatening the affected person or their loved ones with death, severe bodily injury, or sexual violence; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not produce trauma per se.
Acute stress reaction is a psychological response to a terrifying, traumatic or surprising experience. It may bring about delayed stress reactions if not correctly addressed. Acute stress may present in reactions which include but are not limited to: intrusive or dissociative symptoms, and reactivity symptoms such as avoidance or arousal. Reactions may be exhibited for days or weeks after the traumatic event.
Sensory overload occurs when one or more of the body's senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment.
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.
Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is the psychological trauma experienced by a rape survivor that includes disruptions to normal physical, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal behavior. The theory was first described by nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess and sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom in 1974.
Stress-related disorders constitute a category of mental disorders. They are maladaptive, biological and psychological responses to short- or long-term exposures to physical or emotional stressors. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences categorizes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as stress-related disorders. However, the World Health Organization's ICD-11 excludes OCD but categorizes PTSD, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), adjustment disorder as stress-related disorders.
A sympatholytic (sympathoplegic) drug is a medication that opposes the downstream effects of postganglionic nerve firing in effector organs innervated by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). They are indicated for various functions; for example, they may be used as antihypertensives. They are also used to treat anxiety, such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and PTSD. In some cases, such as with guanfacine, they have also shown to be beneficial in the treatment of ADHD.
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.
Memory and trauma is the deleterious effects that physical or psychological trauma has on memory.
Derealization is an alteration in the perception of the external world, causing those with the condition to perceive it as unreal, distant, distorted or falsified. Other symptoms include feeling as if one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring, and depth. It is a dissociative symptom that may appear in moments of severe stress.
PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a psychiatric disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts and memories, dreams or flashbacks of the event; avoidance of people, places and activities that remind the individual of the event; ongoing negative beliefs about oneself or the world, mood changes and persistent feelings of anger, guilt or fear; alterations in arousal such as increased irritability, angry outbursts, being hypervigilant, or having difficulty with concentration and sleep.
Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at a loss. They may feel like they have been cut off from a crucial source of sustenance or feel withdrawn, either suddenly or through a process of erosion. Emotional abandonment can manifest through loss or separation from a loved one.
Anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) is an application of terror management theory to explain an individual's reaction to a traumatic event, which leads to post traumatic stress disorder. Terror management theory posits that humans, unlike any other organism, are uniquely aware that death is the inevitable outcome of life. When thoughts of death are made salient, such as when a terrorist attack carries those thoughts into the level of consciousness, humans are subject to debilitating anxiety unless it can be "buffered." Humans respond to the anxiety and dread mortality salience produces by clinging to their cultural worldview, through self-esteem and also close personal relationships. Cultural worldviews, with their cultural norms, religious beliefs and moral values infuse life with meaning. They give life a feeling of normalcy and also a feeling of control. There is no way to definitely prove one's cultural worldview, there they are fragile human constructs and must be maintained. Clinging to a cultural worldview and self-esteem buffer the anxiety connected to thoughts of mortality. When thoughts of death are salient, humans are drawn to their cultural world view which "stipulates appropriate social requirements, and standards for valued conduct, while instilling one's life with meaning, order and permanence."
The genetic influences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are not understood well due to the limitations of any genetic study of mental illness; in that, it cannot be ethically induced in selected groups. Because of this, all studies must use naturally occurring groups with genetic similarities and differences, thus the amount of data is limited. Still, genetics play some role in the development of PTSD.
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.
Race-based traumatic stress is the traumatic response to stress following a racial encounter. Robert T. Carter's (2007) theory of race-based traumatic stress implies that there are individuals of color who experience racial discrimination as traumatic, and often generate responses similar to post-traumatic stress. Race-based traumatic stress combines theories of stress, trauma and race-based discrimination to describe a particular response to negative racial encounters.
