Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Military Personnel - Essay Example

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is an anxiety disorder that is brought on by an extremely stressful event and is associated with significant cognitive, emotional, and social dysfunction that affects multiple aspects of an individual’s life. Research into the antecedents of the disorder has shown a number of factors that have set the ground for the development of PTSD. These factors include experiences during childhood, mental illness, changes in brain functioning, and the presence of stressors in the person’s life.

When a person experiences a very stressful event, and he/she also experiences extreme fear and helplessness associated with this event, the individual is at risk for the development of PTSD. PTSD can be diagnosed for someone if he/she experience flashbacks to the traumatic event(s), memory and emotional problems, avoidance of situations and objects that could trigger the memory of the trauma, and other related physiological and psychological symptoms for a minimum of one month. PTSD does not develop overnight but presents itself through a series of stages.

An individual has a traumatic experience(s) and then passes through a number of stages including emotional responses, confusion, reduced memory, distress, inability to cope with various stimuli, helplessness, and others until he/she starts to experience anger and frustration that makes the experience of PTSD visible to others. At this point, the individual starts to find it difficult to cope with situations that he/she could cope with before, and this leads to depressive symptoms. Most people who present with symptoms of PTSD experience spontaneous remission, but those who do not require professional help.

Chronic PTSD is associated with changes in brain functioning that hinder the normal functioning of the memory and emotion pathways. Thus, people with chronic PTSD have difficulty maintaining and forming social and personal relationships.