Hurricanes, tornadoes, war, accidents, medical
crises, and assault; these and many other unexpected occurrences can be
traumatic. A “trauma” is defined as a situation in which an individual
perceives that his or her well being or the well being of someone close to
them may be threatened. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a severe
anxiety state that occurs in reaction to unusual and threatening events. PTSD
can occur as an acute disorder closely following the traumatic event or can
have a delayed onset where the symptoms do not appear until six months
following the trauma. Not everyone exposed to trauma will develop PTSD. If an
individual notices no improvement in their personal outlook after
approximately one month following a difficult experience a posttraumatic
stress may be occurring.
A posttraumatic stress reaction may be
occurring when the individual notices that they are still experiencing the
same emotions they did during the trauma with the same intensity, and often
with the feeling that the event is about to reoccur any minute. Another
possible sign of posttraumatic stress is the “flashback.” A “flashback”
occurs when the trauma victim feels and behaves as if the trauma were actually
happening in the present. In this context we often hear of war veterans who
have experiences in which they feel as if they are actually participating in a
battle again and are in danger of being harmed. In this type of situation
trauma victims may react by taking precautionary actions such as hiding, being
excessively alert and sensitive to their surroundings and carefully screening
their contacts with others. Other signs may be excessive worry, intrusive
thoughts of the trauma which continue despite efforts to occupy the mind in
other pursuits, mood changes which cannot be explained as a response to daily
life, the inability to recall important aspects of the trauma, a lack of
interest in activities, feelings of detachment, a sense of a foreshortened
future, difficulty concentrating, repeated nightmares of the traumatic event,
an exaggerated startle response or an sense of being overwhelmed by emotions
that do not seem "logical" to the individual. If incidences of the
previously mentioned signs begin to interfere with daily life, an evaluation
by a professional can help determine what methods to use to assist in healing
these sensitive, spiritual wounds.
The aim of treatment is to reduce the symptoms
by encouraging the affected person to express their emotions related to the
trauma in a safe environment where they can control the pace at which they
will approach the traumatic material. Without exposure to these powerful
emotions, in a safe therapeutic environment, trauma victims may be troubled by
symptoms for years. Use of the therapeutic environment allows the person to
try to achieve some level of desensitization toward reminders of the trauma.
To explain desensitization let us look at what happens in our hospital
emergency rooms everyday. Many injuries treated in emergency rooms are very
serious and potentially disturbing but hospital personnel do not have the time
to be horrified by what they might see. They are required by their jobs to act
quickly and calmly to bring back health to their patients. I suspect that for
most health care professionals in emergency room care, there was a time when
viewing injuries might have caused all kinds of responses (anxiety, faintness, feelings
of helplessness, etc.). Through being desensitized to these injuries by
learning about them, witnessing them often and learning how to cope by knowing
their own competence, they are able to do their job to care for others. In the
same way, individuals who have had stressful experiences can seek to redevelop
a sense returning to the way their lives were prior to the event.
If symptoms do not begin to abate after thirty
days following a stressful incident an evaluation of your situation by a
health care professional may help you decide how to move forward.
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