Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Essay

Combat veterans are among the highest at risk for issues in transitioning form military life to civilian. Many potentially suffer from both physical and/or mental traumas. Many veterans and even active duty services members have allowed the unofficial culture of if you need mental or medical help you are weak. Many military families are also afraid of utilizing family support mechanisms out of fear of

Many veterans are unable to leave behind the trauma of Vietnam and psychologically return home. They struggle with a variety of extremely severe problems that neither they nor their families, friends, or communities knew how to understand

Why are so many soldiers committing suicide? There is no real definitive answer on why there has been such a spike in soldier’s suicide. The Pentagon believes that one underlining factor is PTSD, in conjunction to having experienced a TBI.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a disorder that is the result of a traumatic event. According to the national PTSD center in the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs, about 50% of women experience at least one trauma in their lives, traumas like Rape or child abuse are more common in women than in men. About 60% of men experience a trauma in their lives, traumas more related to physical assault, combat, disaster or witnessing a death. Post-Traumatic stress disorder can happen to anyone. In the United States about 8% of the population will have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at some point in their lives. A disorder similar to Post-Traumatic Stress disorder is Acute Stress Disorder the only difference is that a diagnosis for Acute Stress Disorder has to be given in the month following the traumatic event, for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to be diagnosed the symptoms have to be recurrent for at least a month after the traumatic event. Good examples are some cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder like Maria and Joe a rape victim and a veteran both diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder their symptoms and treatment. Also a case study for suicides involving veterans from the Vietnam war and Somalia peace keeping conflict, 4 veterans diagnosed with PTSD that committed suicide analyzing their major life events and the psychological factors that could have contributed to the suicide.

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that 's triggered by a terrifying event.” War is a perfect example of a distressing event. The number of war veterans with PTSD is increasing rapidly. Also, an outstanding number of untreated war veterans who fell under the radar for government programs committing suicide because of this disorder. As Americans, we are responsible for the lives of our veterans. They serve to protect us and our freedom the minimum expected is to reciprocate this with accommodating them when they return home. The harsh reality is, our government funded programs are not up to par.

PTSD, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, “is a debilitating anxiety disorder characterized by re-experiencing, hyperarousal and avoidance symptoms” in victims of violent crimes and survivors of war, effecting up to 10% of the population of the United States. Between 25%-50% of patients with this diagnosis are considered treatment-resistant in clinical trials focused on traditional therapy methods which couple SSRI medication and psychotherapy.

“Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes,” (Feldman, 2009, p.5). There are many different views of psychological studies. However, they all share the basic foundation. They analyze memories, emotions, perceptions, thoughts, and reasoning processes, as well as the body’s functioning and what maintains these. In addition, each field of psychology strives to improve lives. Understanding behavior and mental processes aids in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses (Feldman, 2009, p.5). There is a vast array of recognized mental illnesses. This paper will reflect on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; the causes of it, the features and associated features, the major psychological perspectives on PTSD, the

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD; what is it, what are the symptoms, how is it diagnosed, can it be treated, what affects does it have on the family? Growing up in a household with both parents suffering from PTSD; these are some of the questions I asked myself on weekly bases. Now that I’m married to a military man I find myself asking some of the same questions after each deployment. I wonder if he is going to come back the man I married or come back an unrecognizable void. I have done extensive research on the disorder to try to answer some of the questions that plagued me growing up, and by sharing with you what I have found, the information may give someone else a little more insight of what the disorder really is.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a very serious and debilitating condition that occurs after a person has been exposed to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical danger happened or was threatened. The kinds of traumatic events triggering PTSD in people include violent personal assaults (rape, mugging), natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes), man-made disasters (bombings), accidents or military combat. People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair a person’s daily life. PTSD is a complicated

Suicide is a major leading cause of death and a widespread concern which occurs at alarming rates in the specific population of the military. One of the main risk factors in of suicide in this population is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There is a great deal of research which analyzes this relationship. There are many elements that serve as contributing factors to the correlation between suicide and PTSD. PTSD-related suicide among soldiers is due to a number of intervening aspects including combat exposure, moral injury, self-forgiveness, social support, and traumatic brain injury.

P-T-S-D, four simple letters that can have a complex impact on one’s life. First off, what exactly is PTSD? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs after someone experiences a psychologically traumatic event, which causes dysfunction in certain mental processes of the brain (Pitman, 2010). It is noteworthy to mention that not everyone who encounters a traumatic event will experience PTSD (Digrande, 2007). Tedeschi and Calhoun (1995) consider an event to be traumatizing when it happens unexpectedly and if the person experiencing it feels they have a lack of control, leaving them with persisting problems. Potentially talk about what criteria are needed to diagnose PTSD found in the Pitman article.

This is a major aspect of veterans mental care that must be treated; the psychological problems at hand. Many soldiers turn to suicide to escape the madness. One man named Schulze cried out for help, but help never came. “He tried to hold a job but he couldn’t. Schulze was suffering flashbacks and panic attacks so intense that he couldn't concentrate on his work. Sometimes, he heard in his mind the haunting chants of the muezzin--the Muslim call to prayer that he'd heard many times in Iraq” (Ephron and Childress 127). This is only one sad story, of many who couldn’t hold on to life. The baffling suicide statistic f 1,000 a month, among 5.6 million veterans that the V.A. treats, as a sign that mental health in soldiers needs more attention and care (Macfarquhar 1). They found that roughly one-quarter of all soldiers had one or more mental health disorders. Not just PTSD but also depression, anxiety, substance abuse. That's twice the rate of people their age in the general population (“New Shooting” 1). One veteran explains his suicidal experiences after war when talking to his mother on the phone, “And I would call her, you know, after I'd drinkin so much. And it's late at night, and I'd tell her, Mom, like, I need help. Every day, I wish I was dead” (“Missed Treatment” 2). The VA should be held responsible for not giving veterans the proper mental health care. If soldier’s can’t go home to a normal life after war, they shouldn’t be going to war in the first place. Not only should the VA take more time in treating our veterans mentalities, the department needs to become more organized and prepared for the task at

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent trauma and stress related disorder (Narrow, et al 2002). In Australia, 7.2% of population who belong to the 16-85 years old group have suffered from PTSD (McEvoy, et al 2011). A statistic also revealed that 4.6% of males and 8.3% of females have been suffering PTSD for over 12 months (Australia Bureau of Statistics 2007), hence, it is obvious that PTSD is a serious mental disorder. This essay is going to explore the diagnostic criteria of PTSD, including its four symptoms, and three contributing factors also will be analyzed, namely: occupational factor, interpretation of threat and social support.

My patient is a male; he is African American in his early 40’s. Based on his actions and his way of thinking he has post-traumatic stress. He has been through some stressful situations that do not help at all because he is traumatized by events he has experienced in the past. He gets flashbacks whenever he goes to sleep witch he would consider being “nightmares”.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects 7.7 million American adults and can also occur during childhood. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that stems from a recent emotional threat such as a natural, disaster, war, and car accidents. PTSD usually occurs from an injury or coming close death. A person who has experienced a past traumatic event has a heightened chance of being diagnosed with PTSD after a current trauma. PTSD can also be determined by looking at one’s genes, different emotions, and current or past family setting. Normally, when a person without PTSD goes through a traumatic event the body releases stress hormones, which in time returns back to normal; However, a person with PTSD releases stress hormones that do not return