Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Latest Assessment and Treatment Strategies - Softcover

Friedman, Matthew J.

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9781887537148: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Latest Assessment and Treatment Strategies

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1887537147 ISBN 13: 9781887537148

Publisher: UNKNO, 2000

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A condensed jargon-free review of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental condition that often results from experiences such as accidents, rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, military combat, or natural disaster. Consumers can quickly know what is involved in making an accurate diagnosis, what symptoms mean, and which treatments are proven most effective. Compact Clinicals series of books offer mental health consumers professional information in a jargon-free, condensed, easy-to-read format. Each book on an individual mental disorder offers detailed descriptions, real-world examples, and compares varying treatment methods. Now, consumers can quickly know what is involved in making an accurate diagnosis and which treatments are proven most effective for a particular disorder. Research from over 100 expert resources is condensed into less than 70 pages of content, using non-academic language and well-defined terminology. Compact Clinicals currently offers targeted information on six disorders: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Conduct Disorders, and Major Depressive Disorder.

In Dr. Friedman's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Latest Assessment and Treatment Strategies you will get answers from the expert. Specifically: Who is at risk for developing PTSD? What is the likelihood of recovery? What is the difference between PTSD and the new diagnosis Acute Stress Disorder? What is the latest information regarding "recovered memories"? How do you differentiate PTSD from other disorders with similar symptoms? What biological factors relate to PTSD? Plus: Three symptom sets of PTSD DSM-IV diagnostic criteria Targeted case examples Five global treatment issues Cognitive behavioral therapies Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing therapy Medical treatments for PTSD Biological underpinnings of PTSD Effectiveness of medications vs. psychological therapies

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About the Author:

Dr. Friedman is Director of the National Center for PTSD and was president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies. He has also served as spokesperson of PTSD for the National Institute of Mental Health and written numerous Reports to Congress on PTSD.

PTSD is characterized by the requirement that a person must have been traumatized by a catastrophic stressor and consists of three symptom clusters (reexperiencing, avoidant/numbing, and hyperarousal as shown in Figure 2.1) as well as diagnostic criteria for persistence and severity. Reexperiencing Symptoms -- These symptoms are unique to PTSD in relation to other psychiatric disorders. They reflect the persistence of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors specifically related to the traumatic event. Such recollections are intrusive because they are not only unwanted, but are also powerful enough to drive away consideration of anything else. Daytime recollections and traumatic nightmares often evoke panic, terror, dread, grief, or despair among those with PTSD. Sometimes people with PTSD are exposed to reminders of the trauma (trauma-related stimuli), and are suddenly thrust into an intense psychological, emotional, and/or physiological state. Trauma-related stimuli can precipitate PTSD flashbacks, in which clients actually relive the traumatic experience, losing all connection with the present. In these acute dissociative or brief psychotic states, they actually behave as if they must protect themselves or fight for their lives as was the case during the initial trauma.

Avoidant/Numbing Symptoms -- These symptoms are behavioral, cognitive, or emotional strategies used to ward off the terror and distress caused by reexperiencing symptoms, including:

Avoidant Symptoms: Avoiding thoughts, feelings, activities, places, and people related to the original traumatic event or psychogenic amnesia for trauma-related memories.

Numbing symptoms: These are psychological mechanisms through which PTSD sufferers anesthetize themselves against the intolerable panic, terror, and pain evoked by reexperiencing symptoms. Psychic numbing occurs when PTSD sufferers automatically suppress most feelings to block out intolerable ones. This strategy comes at a very high price; however, because in order to numb intolerable trauma-related feelings, one must also anesthetize the loving feelings that are necessary to sustain any intimate, loving relationship.

Hyperarousal Symptoms -- These symptoms are the most apparent manifestations of PTSD's excessive physiologic arousal and include insomnia, irritability, startle reactions, and hypervigilance. Such a hyper-reactive psychophysiological state makes it very difficult for people with PTSD to concentrate or perform other cognitive tasks. This cluster of PTSD symptoms most closely resembles symptoms seen in Panic Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and is one reason why PTSD has been classified as an Anxiety Disorder.

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