Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a specific disease pattern which originates during severe overload of stress feedback cycles during traumatic experiences.
It causes consistent ongoing stress responses under circumstances that are mentally associated with the original traumatic event. It is characterised by fear, panic, exaggerated startle response, bad dreams, episodes of flashback, a sense of helplessness, avoidance of similar situations and paranoiac ideation (fantasies about the worst possible outcomes). For a medical diagnosis of PTSD the traumatic event has to be associated with facing death and severe injury in oneself or another person. The symptoms must be present for more than one month and the condition must cause clinically observable distress with impairment of personal, social and occupational functioning. Although there is no specific medical test for the condition, high levels of autonomic nervous system arousal can easily be recorded.
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