What Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Psychologists and psychiatrists have been studying the mind for centuries to understand its complexities and how it functions. In the pursuit for answers, these experts of the mind have uncovered many different oddities and malfunctions that are commonly referred to today as psychological disorders. Within this classification of psychological disorders, researchers have developed a subsection of afflictions that have come to be known as the major anxiety disorders. There are five types of anxiety disorders and these include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. As common as most of these disorders are, one has become increasingly
In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th edition (DSM-IV), PTSD is described as the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to one or more traumatic events. The traumatic events that lead to PTSD are typically so extraordinary or severe that they would distress almost anyone. These events include, but are not limited to, rape, natural disaster, war, learning about a violent or unexpected death of a family member, or even being a witness or bystander to
It is a difficult task to directly pinpoint a date when PTSD first emerged as a serious problem of the mind. It did not become an officially diagnosed disorder until the 1980s in the United States. Considering this, however, PTSD has been recognized in some form for thousands of years. For our purposes, we will start in the 1800s, when PTSD began to manifest itself in soldiers who experienced combat. Unfortunately for those struggling with the disorder was that PTSD was merely characterized as “battle exhaustion” or “soldiers fatigue” — a reference to the repeated forays into battle by traumatized soldiers, resulting in exhaustion of the body’s adrenaline-fueled responses, particularly during long engagements with daily fire. An expression was developed to describe these soldiers who were suffering from PTSD, one which paints a grim picture of life on the battlefield. It was called the “thousand-yard stare” and it referred to the emotionless look and desolate behavior of the anxious soldiers. This problem only persisted following numerous military engagements the United States became involved in, chief among them being Vietnam. Veterans returning from the war reported multiple psychological problems and, in most cases, the symptoms only got worse when these soldiers returned to the home front. What