ABSTRACT
The field of psychology has widely acknowledged and clearly documented the negative impact of stressful events. Stress increases one’s vulnerability to physical illness (Cohen, Tyrell, & Smith, 1993; Harris, 1991) and psychological difficulties (Avison & Gotlib, 1994; Frazier & Schauben, 1994; Vrana & Lauterbach, 1994). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a syndrome originally intended to describe the symptoms of war veterans, first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders in 1980 (DSM-III), and has since been used to document symptoms and problematic behaviors of individuals following a variety of traumatic events: natural disaster, childhood sexual abuse, victimization, or witnessing a violent death (cf. Briere & Runtz, 1988; Browne & Finkelhor, 1986; Hodgkinson, Joseph, Yule, & Williams, 1995; Ursano, Fullerton ton, Kao, & Bhartiya, 1995).
