Posttraumtic Stress Disorder (PTSD) consists of a constellation of symptoms
in response to a life threatening event that includes avoidance of reminders
of the trauma, emotional numbing, and emotional withdrawal from other people.
Reminders
of the trauma, which may be people, places or events, cause the person suffering
from PTSD to become distressed, often similarly to their feelings at the time
of the original trauma. The trauma often leaves people emotionally numbed, meaning
that they have difficulty feeling common human emotions like joy and happiness.
The trauma itself often leaves the person who has suffered the trauma separate
and apart from other people because other people have not experienced anything
like their trauma, and consequently other people cannot understand them. Interestingly,
PTSD is one of only two diagnoses in our current schema that require a preceding
event (the other is Reactive Attachment Disorder).
