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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The D in PTSD is a disorder just as in ADD or ADHD. A disorder is .... It differs from a neurosis or a psychosis in the following way:

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Many people consider PTSD to be the result of a serious trauma such as a major crisis in life or involvement in a major tragedy or attack.

They are right, of course, and those are indeed symptoms of PTSD, those are issues related to PTSD and they are usual definitions.

However, for the purpose of this website, we will discuss issues that result from life's crisis and explain that they, too, are issues of PTSD.

Indeed, a seemingly trivial, an issue such as a broken engagement could lead to PTSD. People who have not gone through such a crisis - even psychiatrists - may not realize the mental impact that it has or could have on a patient. Some patients manage just fine. Others suffer for many years as a result of such an issue or others.

It is not for us to decide what can be a major crisis or what can be a minor crisis. The fact that an individual responds to a particular issue in a critical manner creates the crisis and not our evaluation of the intensity of the source.

In other words, some people have a thick skin and many things do not bother them and they will have fewer traumas. They will go through life's difficulties brushing it off either in a manifest way or in an overt or possibly deep in their psyche. It all depends on the person. Other people, on the other hand, may develop a traumatic reaction even to lesser issues.

The fact that one person is more sensitive than another should not evoke criticism on our part as psychologists. We should accept the fact that these individual differences should be considered carefully when treating out patients.

There are thus milder manifestations in what we might wrongly consider milder causes.