Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - notes from undergrad abnormal psychology

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder A person exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following are present: 1. Person experienced, witnessed or was confronted with event/s that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. 2. the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness or horror. Note: children - may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior. B. Traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in 1 or more: 1. recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event including images, thoughts or perceptions. Children - repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspect of trauma are expressed. 2. recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Children - frightening dreams without recognizable events. 3. Acting or feeling as event recurring. Sense of reliving, illusions, hallucinations and dissociative flashback episodes including those that occur in awakening or when intoricaled. sp. Children - re-enactment may occur. 4. Intense psychological distress or exposure to internal cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event. 5. Psychological reactivity or exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble aspect of threat. C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic and numbing of general responsiveness (not present prior to trauma) by 3 or more of the following: 1. efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversions associated with trauma. 2. efforts to avoid activities, places, people that arouse recollections 3. inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma. 4. marked interest/participation of significant activities. 5. feelings of detachment/estrangement from others. 6. restricted range of affect (unable to have loving feelings). 7. sense of foreshortened future. eg. does not expect career, marriage, kids or normal life span. D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not prior to trauma) by 2 or more of following: difficulty of falling/staying asleep. irritability or outbursts of anger. difficulty concentrating. hypervigilance exaggerated startled response. E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms of criteria B, C, & D.) is more than one month. F. Disturbance causes clinical sign., distress, or impairments ……acute if symptoms less than three months. Chronic - duration of less than three months or more. with delayed onset - if onset of symptoms is at least six months after the stressor. Eg. (Film) Patient - Vietnam works 15 to 16 hrs daily. Picked up for impaired driving. Refused breathalyzer. He is crying and says he does not care. Rest of the time is crying. Issue: reason why not breath sample? His story. His mother and he were in prison camps. People were routinely shot, beaten. Eventually escaped by boat and was at sea for seven days. Refugees - uniform - is one that brings back all these experiences. Failed all criteria. A reminder to not diagnose yourself or others. Pre- changes of DSM. Next for notes on Abnormal psychology is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.