Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a diagnosis established by psychiatrists. Accordingly, this diagnosis requires complex therapy, where the leading role belongs to drug intervention. The role of the psychologist and psychotherapist is secondary in the general treatment of this disorder. Psychologists and psychotherapists with a non-medical profile cannot establish this diagnosis.
I believe that PTSD is a co-diagnosis of mental illness that is likely to occur mainly in those people who have a general mental health disorder due to heredity or genetics. It is interesting that I recently learned about the experimental confirmation of this aspect of PTSD by American scientists.
People who do not have psychiatric diagnoses, with a high probability, cannot have this diagnosis.
I believe that PTSD does not manifest when a person is in a distress situation. That is, her life constantly proceeds in emergencies associated with a direct or indirect threat to her life. In such circumstances, the psyche circulates in the mode of overvoltage and does not reveal its violations, since its main task is to survive.
PTSD will appear when the direct or indirect threat to life disappears, and even under the condition of a peaceful life, a person will retain all the mental reactions inherent in being in an emergency. For example, any sharp sounds will cause a person’s physiological response to run to the bomb shelter, and the most important thing is that she will run.
About PTSD in Ukraine.
I distinguish the situation of acute danger and direct threat to life experienced by military personnel while in the zone of active hostilities.
The civilian population, which is in the zone of probable threat to life – stays in the occupied territories and the zone of active hostilities.
The civilian population is in the zone of partial shelling and acute tension associated with the mental expectation of a threat.
That is, conditionally we have three categories of people who can probably be diagnosed with PTSD.
People living in Ukraine, but apart from the sirens, they had no other reminders of the war.
And also, those who are in the status of refugees in other countries. In these categories of people, PTSD cannot be established, because their lives are safe.
Therefore, we will talk about PTSD in Ukraine after the end of the active phases of the war for the civilian population and after the end of the military’s stay in active combat zones.
I consider the main symptoms of PTSD to be:
– acute states of aggression, anxiety, or frustration/dissatisfaction in situations that do not require such an acute response;
– sleep disturbance;
– disorders of a somatic nature, all chronic diseases become more active, and accompanying ones are added;
– conflict increases;
– unproductive forms of responding to oneself and other people appear;
– hallucinatory manifestations occur (images, sounds, voices, etc.)
– super-ideas can circulate that are not comparable to real life;
– excessive self-absorption or, on the contrary, active communication, which is quite often mysterious and incomprehensible to other people, maybe manifest;
– there will be panic attacks, phobic manifestations, psychopathic aggressive reactions to others;
– obsessive thoughts may circulate, with harm to one’s own body and thoughts of suicide.
If these symptoms are not established by the person himself, he does not define himself as their bearer, I would ask the person, without fail, to visit a psychiatrist.
If a person notices these manifestations in himself, then there is a chance that this is a general fatigue of a person with elements of a violation of mental well-being according to the type of response inherent in a person.
I am convinced that PTSD has no place in a healthy psyche. But, at the same time, she may be diagnosed with mental health disorders of a temporary nature with a return to a healthy state.
You should not “play” with the diagnosis of PTSD, since psychiatric diagnoses are pretty difficult to refute.
