PTSD diagnostic features:

The essential feature of PTSD is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one’s physical integrity, or witnessing ….. The person’s response must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror.  This could include military combat, violent personal assault (sexual assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging) being kidnapped or taken hostage, terrorist attack, torture, incarceration as a prisoner of war or in a concentration camp, natural or manmade disasters, ….The individual has persistent symptoms of anxiety or increased arousal that were not present before the trauma.

“Acute trauma by definition exposes the individual to an extraordinary event wherein his or her sense of control is violated.”  Neborsky p. 283

Bessel van der Kolk:  The most common causes of PTSD in men are combat and witnessing of death or severe injury; While sexual molestation and rape are the most common causes of PTSD in Women.

The diagnosis of PTSD is characterized by three major elements:

•  The repeated reliving of memories of the traumatic experience

• Avoidance of reminders of the trauma, and the numbing, detachment and emotional blunting that often coexist with intrusive recollections – inability to experience joy and pleasure and with a general withdrawal from engagement with life.

• A pattern of increased arousal, expressed by hypervigilance, irritability, memory and concentration problems, sleep disturbances and an exaggerated startle response.

These symptoms that cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational and other important areas of functioning:

•  Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring

• Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event

• Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues

• Efforts to avoid activities, places or people that arouse recollections of the trauma

• Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities

• Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others

• Restricted range of affect

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep

• Irritability or outbursts of anger

• Difficulty concentrating

• hypervigilance