ABSTRACT
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is now so much a part of modern nomenclature and broader society that it is difficult to comprehend just how far psychiatry has advanced in this area over the last four decades. Prior to the inclusion of PTSD in the Third Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-III, in 1980 (American Psychiatric Association, 1980), there was no diagnostic category that captured the concept that adult exposure to extreme stress could lead to a prolonged psychological injury. The new more scientific approach to classification introduced in the DSM-III represented a remarkable renaissance in both academic and clinical psychiatry. Rigorous observational phenomenology came to replace the theoretical hypotheses of psychoanalysis, involving infantile sexuality, fantasy and unconscious conflict as the cause of most adult psychopathology, and the concept of neurosis was removed from diagnostic systems. This change allowed for a reformulation of the enduring effects of traumatic stress and its relevance to psychopathology.
