Ptsd Research

223.4 million U.S. citizens have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lives. This is about 70% of adults in the USA. Today 31.1 million people are struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Rosenthal). PTSD is defined as re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal, due to a traumatic event. The symptoms are either long lasting or have a delayed onset (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). A traumatic event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to self or others, can create intense feelings of fear, helplessness, or horror (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). This traumatic event then can lead to a serious anxiety disorder such as PTSD. Examples range from witnessing another individual in a life or death crisis to experiencing a life or death crisis first. While PTSD affects a large percentage of the world’s population, only recorded incidents are placed in statistics. However around the world traumatic events are not uncommon, with the cases of genocide in Rwanda to war torn counties in the Middle East, and all the way back to the survivors of 9/11 and US troops back from Iraq, it is no wonder that PTSD is one of the most common disorders. This paper will summarize symptoms, causation, prevention and treatment of PTSD. There are four main categories that the symptoms of PTSD are grouped into. The first is re-experiencing the traumatic event or incident. There are a few different ways one can re-experience the trauma. Some may repeatedly visualize distressing images of either the incident or something closely related. There may be a constant thought of the event as it unfolded. Some may focus on how they could have done things differently assuming there might have been a better ending or the event would have been avoided entirely. Others will experience horrifying dreams or night terrors that will either be an exact flashback from the traumatic event or a metaphor of some sort that is equally traumatic. For example, a woman with