Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is an anxiety disorder, which develops after a person is exposed to a traumatic event (like a violent assault, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat) in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened (NIMH, 2008.)
The signs and symptoms of a person with PTSD include: losing interest in things, which were enjoyable earlier, getting startled easily, becoming emotionally numb, inability to feel affectionate, irritability, aggression, etc. A person with PTSD tries to avoid situations that remind them of the original incident. During the daytime, they tend to relive the trauma in their thoughts, and during sleep, they have nightmares; these are called flashbacks, which consist of sounds, images, smells, or feelings. The flashback may be triggered by ordinary events (NIMH, 2008).
While the symptoms of PTSD usually begin within 3 months of the incident, they might even occur a year later (NIMH, 2008). According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), six criteria must be fulfilled before the diagnosis of PTSD can be made (Kinchin, 2004). These include:
- Trauma- the person must have been exposed to a traumatic event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or threat to the physical integrity of self or others.
- Intrusive-the event must have been persistently relieved by the person.
- Avoidant-the person must have persistently avoided stimuli associated with the trauma.
- Physical-the person must have experienced persistent symptoms of increased arousal or ‘over-awareness.’
- Social-the disturbance must have caused considerable distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning.
- Time symptoms linked to point 2,3,4 must have lasted for at least a month.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of counseling, which includes cognitive therapy and exposure therapy. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a similar kind of therapy for PTSD (National Center for PTSD, 2007.)
In cognitive therapy, the therapist helps the patient to understand and change the thinking process about the trauma. The goal of cognitive therapy is to make the patient understand how certain thoughts about the trauma can cause stress and aggravate their symptoms (National Center for PTSD, 2007). The patient learns to replace these thoughts with more accurate and less distressing thoughts, as well as learn to cope with feelings like anger, guilt, and fear (National Center for PTSD, 2007)
The goal of exposure therapy is to have less fear about traumatic memories. (National Center for PTSD, 2007). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a new kind of therapy for PTSD.
It is similar to other types of counseling, wherein a person learns to change the reaction to traumatic memories. As the patient talks about his or her memories, the therapist asks them to focus on distractions like eye movements, hand taps, and sounds (National Center for PTSD, 2007). Another type of therapies for PTSD includes: individual psychotherapy, family therapy, or group therapy (Helpguide.org, 2008.)
Medications, which are useful in PTSD, include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These are antidepressants that raise the level of serotonin in the brain. They include: fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram, and paroxetine, (National Center for PTSD, 2007.)
Acute stress disorder (ASD) is a condition, which develops “after a person experiences or sees an event involving a threat or actual death, serious injury, or physical violation to the individual or others, and responded to this event with strong feelings of fear, helplessness or horror” (Psychology Today, 2007). In order to diagnose the condition as an acute stress disorder, the symptoms must persist for a minimum of two days to up to four weeks within a month of the trauma, and if other mental disorders or medical conditions cannot explain the symptoms (Psychology Today, 2007). If the symptoms persist for more than a month, then it is diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder (Psychology Today, 2007.)
The symptoms include: lack of emotional responsiveness, detachment, a reduced sense of surroundings, depersonalization, an inability to remember parts of the trauma, “dissociative amnesia,” increased state of anxiety and arousal, inability to experience pleasure, repeatedly re-experiencing the event by images and/or thoughts, dreams, illusions, flashbacks, avoidance of exposure to thoughts, emotions, conversations, places or people that remind them of the trauma, feelings of stress interfering with functioning and impairment of social and occupational skills (Psychology Today, 2007.)
Treatment for ASD includes cognitive-behavioral, psychological debriefing, and anxiety management groups. Psychological debriefing is done immediately after the trauma, wherein the affected individuals talk out openly about the trauma. An anxiety management group involves people with ASD who share coping strategies and learn to tackle stress (Psychology Today, 2007.)
For my loved one, I would choose cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) because it is known to be the most effective type of counseling for both PTSD as well as ASD.
Reference
Helpguide.org. “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.” 2008. Web.
Kinchin, D. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Invisible Injury. Success Unlimited, 2004.
NIMH. “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.” 2008. Web.
National Center for PTSD. “Treatment of PTSD.” 2007. Web.
Psychology Today. “Acute stress disorder.” 2007. Web.