Industrial Psychology
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an emotional illness that was first formally diagnosed in soldiers and war veterans and is caused by terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experiences.
PTSD symptom types include re-experiencing the trauma, avoidance, and hyper arousal.
Girls, women, and ethnic minorities tend to develop PTSD more than boys, men, and Caucasians.
Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) usually results from prolonged exposure to traumatic event(s) and is characterized by long-lasting problems that affect many aspects of emotional and social functioning.
Symptoms of C-PTSD include problems regulating feelings, dissociation or depersonalization; persistent depressive feelings, seeing the perpetrator of trauma as all-powerful, preoccupation with the perpetrator, and a severe change in what gives the sufferer meaning.
Untreated PTSD can have devastating, far-reaching consequences for sufferers' medical and emotional functioning and relationships, their families, and for society. Children with PTSD can experience significantly negative effects on their social and emotional development, as well as their ability to learn.
Although almost any event that is life-threatening or that severely compromises the emotional well-being of an individual may cause PTSD, such events usually include experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury, getting a frightening medical diagnosis, being the victim of a crime or torture, exposure to combat, disaster or terrorist attack, enduring any form of abuse, or involvement in civil conflict.
Issues that tend to put people at higher risk for developing PTSD include female gender, minority ethnicity, increased duration or severity of, as well as exposure to, the trauma experienced, having an emotional condition prior to the event, and having little social support. Risk...
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