ABSTRACT

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that develops following exposure to a traumatic event. Such an event is de®ned as involving actual or threatened death or injury, or threat to the personal integrity of oneself or others. In addition to exposure to a traumatic event, the survivor must react to the event with intense fear, horror or helplessness (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). The symptoms of PTSD fall into three clusters: re-experiencing, avoidance/numbing, and hyperarousal. The re-experiencing symptoms include recurrent distressing recollections of the traumatic experience, recurrent distressing dreams of the trauma, ¯ashbacks, and intense emotional or physiological arousal when exposed to trauma reminders. Avoidance and numbing symptoms include avoidance of thoughts, feelings and situations that remind the survivor of the trauma; loss of interest; detachment from others; and a sense of foreshortened future. Hyperarousal symptoms include dif®culty in falling or staying asleep; problems with concentration, anger and irritability; and exaggerated startle response. Prevalence estimates of PTSD among adults vary widely depending on the population examined and the methods of assessment (Rauch & Foa, 2003) with 5 percent to 8 percent reported in two large epidemiological studies (Kessler et al., 1995; Norris, 1992).