Counseling Services of Barbara Reade, L.C.P.C.
Bel Air, Maryland 21014

Phone: 410-803-1510

Email: reade.lcpc@yahoo.com  

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a stress reaction that is intense, chronic, and overwhelming, at times. It can be successfully treated, and a normal sense of life and living can return, to anyone suffering from this disorder. If you think this might be a problem you are experiencing, be kind to yourself and contact a specialist in this area of counseling. You can recover-and your life can regain meaning, purpose and peace.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

SYMPTOMS

The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:

(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others
(2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
***Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

(1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions.
*** Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
(2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event.
***Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without
       recognizable content.
(3) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions,
hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated).
***Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
(4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
(5) physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event

Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
(6) restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
(7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)

Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

(1) difficulty falling or staying asleep
(2) irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) difficulty concentrating
(4) hypervigilance
(5) exaggerated startle response

Duration of the disturbance is more than 1 month.

The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

If you have a life threatening emergency please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room immediately!