Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster, traffic collision, 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 and can include triggers such as misophonia. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events, such as bodily injury, sexual violence, or other threats to the life of the subject or their loved ones; 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 always produce trauma per se. Examples of distressing events include violence, rape, or a terrorist attack.
Combat stress reaction (CSR) is acute behavioral disorganization as a direct result of the trauma of war. Also known as "combat fatigue", "battle fatigue", "operational exhaustion", or "battle/war neurosis", it has some overlap with the diagnosis of acute stress reaction used in civilian psychiatry. It is historically linked to shell shock and is sometimes a precursor to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Acute stress reaction (ASR), also known as psychological shock, mental shock, or simply shock, as well as acute stress disorder (ASD), is a psychological response to a terrifying, traumatic, or surprising experience. The reactions may include but are not limited to intrusive thoughts, or dissociation, and reactivity symptoms such as avoidance or hyperarousal. It may be exhibited for days or weeks after the traumatic event. If the condition is not correctly addressed, it may develop into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Survivor guilt or survivor's guilt happens when individuals feel guilty after they survive a near death or traumatic event when others perished. It can cause similar depressive symptoms associated with PTSD. Dr. William G. Niederland first introduced the term to describe the feeling of punishment many of the Holocaust survivors felt for surviving over their loved ones. The experience and manifestation of survivor guilt will depend on an individual's psychological profile. When the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) was published, survivor guilt was removed as a recognized specific diagnosis, and redefined as a significant symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The history of survivor guilt outlines similar symptoms among many groups and individuals that experience tragic situations. Other patterns of guilt are found in medical aid groups who lose patients and place blame on themselves. Examples of traumatic events include situations when an individual experiences intense feelings of guilt after a loved one has passed. War and the loss of a loved one due to traumatic events are closely related to feelings of depression and anxiety, that can later lead to PTSD. Suicidal thoughts are related to intense feelings of anxiety and depression from guilt related to traumatic events.
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress-related mental and behavioral disorder generally occurring in response to complex traumas.
Chaim F. Shatan was a Jewish-Canadian psychiatrist born in Włocławek, Poland.
Traumatic stress is a common term for reactive anxiety and depression, although it is not a medical term and is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The experience of traumatic stress include subtypes of anxiety, depression and disturbance of conduct along with combinations of these symptoms. This may result from events that are less threatening and distressing than those that lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. The fifth edition of the DSM describes in a section titled "Trauma and Stress-Related Disorders" disinhibited social engagement disorder, reactive attachment disorder, acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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.
Thomas "Tom" Calloway Lea III was an American muralist, illustrator, artist, war correspondent, novelist, and historian. The bulk of his art and literary works were about Texas, north-central Mexico, and his World War II experience in the South Pacific and Asia. Two of his most popular novels, The Brave Bulls and The Wonderful Country, are widely considered to be classics of southwestern American literature.
Memory and trauma is the deleterious effects that physical or psychological trauma has on memory.
Jonathan Shay is an American doctor and clinical psychiatrist. He holds a B.A. from Harvard (1963), and an M.D. (1971) and a Ph.D. (1972) from the University of Pennsylvania. He is best known for his publications comparing the experiences of Vietnam veterans with the descriptions of war and homecoming in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Shell shock is a term that originated during World War I to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that many soldiers experienced during the war, before PTSD was officially recognized. It is a reaction to the intensity of the attacks and fighting that produced helplessness, which could present as panic, fear, flight, or an inability to reason, sleep, walk, or talk.
Bessel van der Kolk is a Dutch psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator. Since the 1970s his research has been in the area of post-traumatic stress. He is the author of The New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score.
Management of post-traumatic stress disorder refers to the evidence-based therapeutic and pharmacological interventions aimed at reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and improving the quality of life for individuals affected by it. Effective approaches include trauma-focused psychotherapy as a first-line treatment, with options such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), prolonged exposure therapy, and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) demonstrating strong evidence for reducing PTSD symptoms.
Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary mode of transmission is the shared family environment of the infant causing psychological, behavioral and social changes in the individual.
Perpetrator trauma, also known as perpetration- or participation-induced traumatic stress , both abbreviated to PITS, occurs when the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are caused by an act or acts of killing or similar horrific violence.
Trauma risk management (TRiM) is a method of secondary PTSD prevention. The TRiM process enables non-healthcare staff to monitor and manage colleagues. TRiM training provides practitioners with a background understanding of psychological trauma and its effects.
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.
WWII lasted from September 1st, 1939 until September 2nd, 1945. The death toll during WWII has been estimated to be between 35,000,000 and 60,000,000. However, the exact number is unknown. With all those fatalities, it should not be surprising that it left so many lasting effects on the survivors. There have been many terms for these lasting effects over the decades. These terms include, but are not limited to, shell shock and combat fatigue. In 1980, the diagnosis of PTSD was added to the newly published DSM 3.
