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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Sonya Gibau
4/24/16
PS-208
Sonya Gibau
4/24/16
PS-208

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that occurs after exposure to severe helplessness or a fear inducing threat. The victim will continue to experience the trauma, will avoid any stimuli associated with it, and develops a numbing responsiveness and an increased vigilance and arousal (Barlow & Durand, 2015). Some recent events that could cause Americans to suffer from this disorder are the wars, the attack on the twin towers, and Hurricane Sandy. Individuals can also suffer from this disorder after being in a car accident, dealing with sexual assault, or the sudden loss of a loved one. The individual will have very real visions, memories, and dreams of the traumatic experience they have faced. When this occurs, the victim has a strong emotion, and is actually having what is considered to be a flashback of the event. Research suggest that 25-30% of individuals that are exposed to traumatic events will suffer from PTSD (Fry, 2016). Posttraumatic stress disorder goes as far back as 1666. This is when the British diarist Samuel Pepys had begun to suffer from PTSD. After witnessing the Great Fire of London, he began to lose sleep and awaken with terrible dreams of fire from the events that occurred on the night of the fire. He also had feelings of guilt, a sense of detachment, and a numbness of emotions about the fire. All of these have been found to be related to PTSD. However, it was not until 1980 that is was first acknowledged in DSM-III. Since then, reckless or self-destructive behavior and a dissociative subtype has been added to the DSM-5. The individuals that suffer from the dissociative subtype of PTSD have less arousal than normal and have feelings of unreality (Barlow &

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