Mark O’Brien

Psychology

Professor McAuffie

November 27, 2017

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Throughout history people have gone through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is a traumatic

disorder that happens to people that have been put in an extremely horrific environment or

terrifying situation. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has a rich history, different and intense

symptoms, treatments, and interesting real life examples that provide information about this

disorder that effects so many peoples’ lives.

Throughout history Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has had many different names. Back

before people knew what PTSD was there was little to no societal sympathy for people having a

brutal disorder. People first started to report Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after World War I.

The soldiers did not receive any help and people portrayed them as not tough. People started to

call this ‘Shell shocked’. It was not until World War II that they changed the name to ‘Battle

Fatigued’. The Military started to acknowledge the real effect of this notorious disorder on

soldier’s psyche. Not until 1980 did the American Psychiatric Association (APA) add PTSD to

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Today, there are programs and
foundations to help soldiers and others that have gone through a traumatic situation coming back

and needing help like Wounded Warriors and PTSD Foundations of America (Crocq, 2000).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is something that makes any other normal day or activity hard on

your mind. There are some symptoms that can help people detect if they have the disorder. Not

every person that experienced a tragic or traumatic event has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Most of the time symptoms start three months after the event but sometime don’t start until years

later, but everyone is different when it comes to their timeline with the disorder. The illness must

start to affect your relationships or work to be consider PTSD. You must have five symptoms to

have PTSD, at least one re-experiencing symptom (must include Flashbacks-reliving the trauma

over and over, including physical symptoms like racing heart or sweating, bad dreams,

frightening thoughts), at least one avoidance symptom (Avoiding things that remind you of the

event that took place) at least two arousals and reactivity symptoms (Being startled easily,

Trouble sleeping, on edge, angry outburst), and at least two cognition and mood symptoms

(feeling guilt or blame, do not enjoy fun things, trouble remembering the event, hate self or

world). Some People have these exact symptoms for only a few short weeks but are very intense.

This is called Acute Stress Disorder. But if it is over a month it is most likely PTSD. Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder can lead to depression, substance abuse, and other anxiety related

disorders (Friedman,2007).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is such a hard and debilitating problem. It makes just the sound

of hearing something, seeing something, or just even being in your thoughts a stimulus that can

trigger an outbreak. Although this disorder is tough for the individual and the people around

them, there are treatments to help them get through it. For most people that get diagnosed with

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they have fear and anxiety but these symptoms start to
extinguish over time, but fear doesn’t not always fade naturally over time and that can develop

into chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For the majority of individuals exposed to a

traumatic event, this fear and anxiety naturally extinguishes over time. For a significant majority,

fear does not extinguish naturally over time and can develop into chronic PTSD. One of the big

symptoms of PTSD is avoidance, this makes it difficult for people with PTSD to seek help. The

average person with PTSD takes around 9 years post target trauma to seek help. The way that the

society reacts after someone goes through a traumatic event is extremely evident to PTSD and

other clinical issues (Schumm al et., 2014). Also, Sociodemographic factors, stigma, and

thoughts of hopelessness contribute to these low rates of help seeking in PTSD (Raunch al et.,

2016). This all being said there are some good treatment options for people suffering. Some of

the different treatments include prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, eye

movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, challenges of implementing evidence-based

psychotherapy, and incorporation of military culture and moral injury. The two most effective

results are prolonged exposure therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). Prolonged

exposure therapy is when a therapist will expose the thing that give you the fear and anxiety that

hinders your mind and body you on a daily basis. There are two important parts of prolonged

exposure, imaginal exposure and in vivo exposure. Imaginal exposure is when the therapist

would repeat retelling stories of the persons’ traumatic event. While in vivo exposure is when

you repeat encounters with people, places, or objects that evoke fear and anxiety that is relates to

the traumatic event. Cognitive Processing Therapy is similar to Exposure therapy with all the

interventions and long talks. But the main difference is that the therapist in CPT tries to change

their mind sets with homework and other techniques. The theory of Cognitive Processing

Therapy is that PTSD develops when the natural recovery process is disrupted or stalled and
hypothesizes that cognitive stuck points (trauma-related thoughts and beliefs) interfere with

recovery. The five cognitive themes of CPT are safety, trust, power-control, esteem, and

intimacy. Without these five themes the rate of success decrease tremendously. CPT and

exposure therapy are the two best treatment to use when having PTSD. Although there is a

stigma around therapy, it so useful for people with PTSD to get better (Roth et al., 2013).

One example of someone living through this difficult disorder is my dad. My dad was on the 60th

floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. On September 11th 2001, his world would be

changed forever. He struggled with PTSD for a while after that day. He made it out minutes

before the towers came down. Once he knew he crossed the state line back to New Jersey and the

adrenaline stated to fade, is when the onset of anxiety rushed in his head. A wife and three little

boys at home and just endured the deadliest attack on our nation’s soil. For months to come he

felt different. His worst symptom was avoidance. He would have a cigarette to try to cope with

his problems. There was a study done on this about people coping with alcohol instead of instead

of therapy because of the stigma behind getting help (Miller al et.,2017). Also surprising and

random loud noises would startle him and would strike fear from the plane crashing into the

building back in his head. One time, a month after the building fell, he was working in Jersey

City and a construction crew came next to his office. After the loud machine went off the entire

floor jumped out of their seats went to run to the windows. It showed that the attacks to took

such a toll on his mind. He has never received any therapy for his PTSD, although he believes he

should have. My dad still has things that trigger fear and anxiety in him, but since time has

passed he has learned to be able to get over things as it comes. Still to this day he has survivors’

guilt, and sometimes thinks about why he lived when so many other people he knew did not. My
dad is a prime example of what it is like to have PTSD and what he does to cope with his

problems.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a horrific disorder that can really effect all aspects of a

person’s life, from your family to your relationships. PTSD was once looked at by society as

something not relevant and had a large negative stigma. It was looked through a social lens of

something that didn’t exist until after world War II. The symptoms of PTSD have the ability to

effect all aspects of your life. It can happen at the sound or sight of something that makes you

think of the event. Treatment for someone with PTSD is hard and tough process. The two best

treatment options are Cognitive Processing Therapy and prolonged exposure. The real world

example shows that PTSD is truly a horrific disorder to deal with, but with time you can learn to

cope with this disorder.

Crocq, M., & Crocq, L. (2000, March). From shell shock and war neurosis to posttraumatic

stress disorder: a history of psychotraumatology. Retrieved December 03, 2017, from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181586/

Friedman, M. J. (2007, January 31). PTSD: National Center for PTSD. Retrieved

December 03, 2017, from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/ptsd-overview/ptsd-

overview.asp

Grubbs, K. M., Fortney, J. C., Pyne, J. M., Hudson, T., Moore, W. M., Custer, P., & ...

Schnurr, P. P. (2015). Predictors of initiation and engagement of cognitive processing

therapy among veterans with PTSD enrolled in collaborative care. Journal Of Traumatic

Stress, 28(6), 580-584. doi:10.1002/jts.22049

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (2016, February). Retrieved December 03, 2017, from

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml

Rauch, S. M., & Rothbaum, B. O. (2016). Innovations in Exposure Therapy for PTSD

Treatment. Practice Innovations, doi:10.1037/pri0000027

ROTH, M., ST CYR, K., & MCINTYRE-SMITH, A. (2013). Evidence-Based

Treatments for Military-Related PTSD: A Review of Advances in

Psychotherapy. In AIKEN A. & BÉLANGER S. (Eds.), Beyond the Line:

Military and Veteran Health Research (pp. 196-209). McGill-Queen's

University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32b85v.19

social reactions to trauma‐related experiences with PTSD and depression among

veterans seeking PTSD treatment. Journal Of Traumatic Stress, 27(1), 50-57.

doi:10.1002/jts.21879

Stephen M. Miller, Eric R. Pedersen, Grant N. Marshall, Combat experience and problem

drinking in veterans: Exploring the roles of PTSD, coping motives, and perceived stigma,

In Addictive Behaviors, Volume 66, 2017, Pages 90-95, ISSN 0306-4603,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.11.011.