WHAT IS PTSD?
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:
A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the
following were present:
(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or
events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a
threat to the physical integrity of self or other
(2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or
agitated behavior
B. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of
the following ways:
(1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event,
including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In children, repetitive
play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
(2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In young children,
there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
(3) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a
sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and
dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening
or when intoxicate). Note: In young children, trauma-specific
re-enactments may occur.
4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues
that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
(5) physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that
symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing
of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by
three (or more) of the following:
(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with
the trauma
(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, people that arouse recollections
of the trauma
(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant
activities
(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
(6) restricted range of affect (e.g. unable to have loving feelings)
(7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g. does not expect to have a
career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the
trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:
(1) difficulty falling to sleep or staying asleep
(2) irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) difficulty concentrating
(4) hyper vigilance
(5) exaggerated startle response
E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more
than one month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
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