Post-traumatic stress disorder

"Afghan syndrome", "Vietnamese syndrome", "Chechen syndrome" - various names for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a psychological condition, which can result in various psychotraumatic situations that go beyond the ordinary experience of a person and that threaten his lifeOr the lives and physical integrity of other people. Has a prolonged character and a latent period, can manifest itself in a period of six months to several years and more after the psychological trauma was transferred.

Causes of PTSD

Traumatic psychological effects can be caused by natural disasters, military actions, rape, terrorist acts and accompanying acts( torture, violence, hostage taking), as well as death of people close to the patient or a severe and prolonged illness. In all these cases, the psychological shock is very severe and leads to the appearance of a person feeling a strong fear or horror and a sense of helplessness.

Clinical manifestations of

The disorder manifests itself by an obsessive repeated reproduction of the event that caused the trauma in the mind of a person. At the same time, often the stress produced surpasses the level of stress that was experienced directly in the course of the event itself and may even be a very strong experience leading to the idea of ​​suicide as a means of ending this stress. Pleso flash memory and obsessive nightmares are very characteristic for PTSD.

With PTSD, a patient can avoid feelings, conversations and thoughts about injuries, as well as all people, revenge and actions that somehow cause traumatic memories. Often there is psychogenic amnesia - that is, the patient is unable to reproduce completely the memory of the traumatized event. Perhaps the emergence of a state of constant expectation of a new threat. In some cases, this disorder can be complicated by somatic diseases and disorders, most often the cardiovascular, endocrine, nervous and digestive system.

Methods of correcting post-traumatic stress

Educational category. The patient may well have resources for his own recovery, which can be found through various articles and books that introduce them to the concepts of psychology and physiology. They can realize that their difficulties and experiences are not unique, which will give them a chance that a qualified specialist will help them understand their problem.

Holistic attitude to health. The principle of holism. It is proposed to treat a person as a whole, which implies the importance of activating all possible resources of the human personality and organism: proper nutrition, use of a sense of humor, physical activity, spiritual development. Attention to all aspects of the human personality can help to reveal such restorative abilities that a person did not even have a clue about.

Social support. Great value for a person suffering from post-traumatic stress, has his social environment. When organizing crisis events, it is necessary to take into account the fact that a person can rely on a psychological trauma situation, what problems can appear in a person at work and in the family as a result of a traumatic event. This category includes networks of mutual assistance and the creation of support from various public organizations.

Actually psychological help. Assistance to the patient in its structure involves working with negative manifestations( support groups for children and adults who have survived grief), eliminating phobic reactions by working with traumatic images and various individual methods of psychological support and help. A separate place in the complex of psychological care is occupied by methods created specifically. This is, first of all, psychological debriefing, which is a form of crisis intervention and which is applied immediately after a crisis event when working with a group of people, and the psychobiographical debriefing used when working with an individual, if a long time has passed since the trauma.