Trauma and PTSD

Trauma and PTSD affect 7-8 percent of the population. Those experiencing trauma or PTSD are exposed to death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, through direct exposure, witnessing the trauma, learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma or indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced through unwanted upsetting memories, nightmares, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders and physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders. Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli after the trauma, occurs through trauma-related thoughts or feelings and trauma-related external reminders. Trauma-related arousal and reactivity must also began or worsened after the trauma through irritability or aggression, risky or destructive behavior, hypervigilance, heightened startle reaction, difficulty concentrating, and difficulty sleeping.