What is PTSD?
While some individuals will appear to recovery after an experience of trauma, for some psychological distress can persist and cause usto become ‘stuck’. When this distressremains and reduces psychosocial functioning, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health conditions (i.e., depression, agoraphobia, substance/alcohol use, depression) can develop. PTSD contains four reactions that occur after a traumatic experience. PTSD reactions can be broken down into the following four categories:
Re-experiencing symptoms
These symptoms involve re-living the traumatic experience in some way. This can include flashbacks, intrusive images, and nightmare. Re-experiencing symptoms also include physical symptoms like a racing heart, sweating, and shortness of breath.
Avoidance symptoms
To cope with trauma-related thoughts and feelings we can actively or
automatically avoid places, people, thoughts, and conversations that remind us of the trauma. While in the short-term avoidance can reduce anxiety and distress, it can limit our lives and routines, and maintain PTSD.
Hyperarousal and reactivity symptoms
After a traumatic experience we can find it very difficult to relax, and ‘switch off’. People with PTSD report always being on guard, being easily started, feeling tense and on-edge, having angry outbursts, have difficulties sleeping, and persistently feeling as though something bad is going to happen again.
Thought and mood symptoms
The experience of trauma can significantly impact what we feel and how we feel our emotions. People with PTSD often report intense emotions, and difficulties regulating their emotions. At other times they report feeling detached, numb, and cut-off from their emotions.
Traumatic experience can also alter the lens that we see the world through. Changes in post-traumatic beliefs centre around the following themes:
- Self-blame and shame e.g., “I am bad”; “I should have done … instead”; “I am to blame”.
- Safety e.g., “I must be on guard to be safe”; “People are not safe”.
- Trust e.g., “People cannot be trusted”; “I cannot trust my own thoughts and feelings”.
- Power and control e.g., “I must be in control or something bad will happen”; “I have no control over what happens to me”.
- Esteem e.g., “I am not good enough”; “I am damaged”.
- Intimacy and connection e.g., “It is not safe to connect to people”; “People will leave or hurt me”; “I don’t matter”.