Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Symptoms & Treatments

What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events.


Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt. They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult.


These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person’s day-to-day life.


Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can be caused by a range of traumatic events such as a road trafiic accident, assault, witnessing violence, military experience or experience of war, natural disasters or personal abuse or neglect.
When a significant traumatic event happens in our lives we can often feel fundamentally changed as a person and alters the way we see the world. It can feel that we carry the trauma around with us and yet at the same time find it hard to process what really happened. This can lead us to have difficulty in getting back to 'normal' and it is common to experience high levels of anxiety, feelings of anger or guilt.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a difficulty of incomplete processing so that we feel like we are back there at the event, that we could have acted differently and that our sense of danger is heightened as a result. 

Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD can be diagnosed usually after a few months of the disturbing event when usual psychological processes are not effective. Nightmares and flashbacks are common as well as reliving the events as if you are actually there. There is often avoidance of situations that remind you of the trauma such as avoiding to drive after an accident. PTSD can seriously impact on your life leading to problems in relationships and at work as well as feelings of anger, guilt, depression and shame. Commonly alcohol use as a way of coping is used.

PTSD is in essence a difficulty in processing the event fully. The mind wishes to replay the event so make sense of what has happened but this causes repeated anxiety and feelings that the threat that was once real and serious continues to be present. We can often overestimate our own guilt or role in the trauma and the chances of a repetition making it difficult to move on and feeling fundamentally changed by the experience.

“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” 

―  Judith Lewis Herman ―

Therapy Treatments for PTSD

Therapy can help process the trauma and identify any unhelpful thinking styles so that you can make sense of what really happened. The therapy helps relieve the distress and although the trauma will inevitably leave a mark, you will not have to carry it around all the time. 

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for PTSD. The therapy helps the brain process the trauma by exploring it is detail and identifying the thoughts that accompany such memories. The therapy helps reduce avoidance behaviours (eg. getting back on the road after a car accident) and explores the thoughts that may increase the distress such as feeling personally responsible for what had happened. Although scars remain, over time therapy can help you make sense of what has happened and to reduce its impact on your current life. 

Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): The Linen Cupboard Metaphor

Memories in PTSD are a bit like items stuffed in a messy linen cupboard. Whenever you brush pass the cupboard the door flies open and items fall out: in other words, whenever you come across a reminder of the trauma you have flashbacks or intrusive memories, and feel intense fear. A typical response is to try to stuff things back in the cupboard, and to close the door as quickly as possible. But this just keeps the problem going: memories are jammed in the cupboard, and the door will still swing open at the lightest touch.

Treatment for PTSD involves
• slowly taking things out of the cupboard
• examining them carefully
• folding them neatly
• putting them back in the right place

In this way, memories of the traumatic event find their proper place: you can find them if you choose to, but they won’t come back so often when you don’t want them to.

PTSD and other difficulties

Symptoms of trauma can often overlap with feelings of depression, anxiety, anger or substance use. Therapy will explore the difficulties holistically so that the roots as well as any maladaptive coping strategies can be addressed in a sensitive manner. 

Next steps for overcoming your Trauma

I offer a free confidential 15 minute telephone consultation before any commitments where we can discuss if therapy is the right approach. Only if you are comfortable to proceed we will arrange an initial meeting and start work on your plan to recovery.

Give me a call today or use the online booking form to setup a free 15 minute telephone consultation and I can discuss how I can help with working through your PTSD issues.


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