Post Traumatic Stress Disorder interests me, first of all, because I have it... several times over from different trauma in my Life.
I also do volunteer writing work for the Training Institute for Mental Health here in Manhattan, which offers below market rate therapy for all kinds of problems and people..
Statistically, the people who are most likely to suffer from PTSD are cops, Firefighters, and military veterans. Victims of any kind of serious physical/mental/sexual abuse are also likely to suffer from it.
People who have PTSD often have recurring nightmares, fits of rage that come "out of nowhere," severe depression, sexual impotence, you name it.
Many veterans have waited ages to be treated for PTSD. Worse, there used to be a policy (which we exposed in through our TIMH newsletter to people in NY ) that military doctors for a long time were told NOT TO DIAGNOSE PTSD FOR IRAQ AND AFGHAN VETERANS EVEN IF THAT WAS THE OBVIOUS DIAGNOSIS BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO COVER IT UP AND BECAUSE THE VA DIDN'T WANT TO/COULDN'T DEAL WITH IT.
Finally, many veterans don't trust the VA for any kind of treatment and would rather go to someplace like the Training Institute for Mental Health and see a private, truly confidential therapist they can trust.
Victims of sexual abuse/ childhood trauma often feel the same way about seeking treatment at all.
For instance, I was sexually abused by a doctor when I was a youngster in the hospital for a serious operation. I won't go into detail what he did, but he had the curtains drawn and there was nobody around of course and he, being a predator, was wily when it came to choosing victims.
I felt ashamed and embarrassed by what happened and felt somehow I was at fault for it and also afraid to tell anyone about it.
This is just one example...
The Catholic Church is just now starting to deal with all the children who have been abused by pedophile priests and the cover up of this which reaches up to various Popes.
In countries like Ireland, it has become an enormous local issue.
Recently Sinead O'Connor ( who caused a scandal years ago by ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live-- unrehearsed, the SNL people were dumbfounded-- saying " THIS is the real enemy!!"- Sinead now says what she meant was to protest the way she was sexually abused by a priest in Ireland as a child and how it was covered up.
Somehow, nobody seems to trust this new version of events from Sinead, it seems to most she is simply trying to jump on the bandwagon and be accepted again in still very Catholic and heavily-churched Ireland.
( The only places more churched than Ireland seem to be Poland and French Canada, but I have read recently this is no longer the case with young people in those countries. Church attendance has fallen off incredibly in French Canada among younger people and while Poles still go to Mass and even to Confession, they wear their religion more lightly now, just as most people in Indonesia wear their Islamic heritage much more lightly than those in the Mideast-- and cannot believe ISIS is really happening. But that deserves a different article).
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (cont.)IN THIS ARTICLE
How is PTSD assessed?
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For individuals who may be wondering if they should seek evaluation for PTSD by their medical or mental-health professional, self-tests may be useful. The National Institute of Mental Health offers a self-test for PTSD. The assessment of PTSD can be difficult for practitioners to make since sufferers often come to the professional's office complaining of symptoms other than anxiety associated with a traumatic experience. Those symptoms tend to include body symptoms (somatization), depression, or drug addiction. Studies of Iraq war veterans indicate that these individuals tend to show more physical symptoms of PTSD as opposed to describing the associated emotional problems.
Individuals with PTSD may present with a history of making suicide attempts. In addition to depression and substance-use disorders, the diagnosis of PTSD often co-occurs (is comorbid) with bipolar disorder(manic depression), eating disorders, and other anxiety disorders like obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.
Most health-care professionals who examine a child or teenager for PTSD will interview both the parent and the child, usually separately, in order to allow each party to speak freely. Interviewing the child in addition to the adults in his or her life is quite important given that while the child or adolescent's parent or guardian may have a unique perspective, there are naturally things the young person may be thinking, feeling, or doing that the adult is not aware of.
Another challenge for diagnosing PTSD in children, particularly in younger children, is that they may express their symptoms differently from adults. For example, symptoms in children may include the child going backward or regressing in their development, becoming accident prone, engaging in risky behaviors, becoming clingy, or suffering from more physical complaints as compared to adults with PTSD. Traumatized younger children may also have trouble sitting still, focusing, or managing their impulses and therefore be mistaken as suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Sometimes, professionals will use a rating scale or a structured psychiatric interview for children in its entirety or just the portion that assesses PTSD in order to test for PTSD. Examples of such tools include the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-Revised (DICA-R), the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Version IV (DISC-IV), and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children (K-SADS). There are also some PTSD-specific structured interviews, like the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale-Child and Adolescent Version, the Child PTSD Checklist, and the Child PTSD Symptom Scale.
For the assessment of the severity of PTSD symptoms in children, structured interviews like the Child Posttraumatic Stress Reaction Index, the Child and Adolescent Trauma Survey, and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children are sometimes used. The Child Trauma Screening Questionnaire has been found by some professionals to be useful in predicting which children who endure a traumatic event will go on to develop PTSD.
Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 4/16/2014
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