ABSTRACT
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has long been considered a
‘normal’ response to an ‘abnormal’ event. However, it turns out that
rates of trauma are extremely high, and that only a small percentage of
people go on to develop chronic PTSD. Thus PTSD is increasingly seen as
an abnormal response to a traumatic event (Yehuda and McFarlane,
1995). Certainly, PTSD is a disorder that is characterised by considerable
distress and functional impairment.
