OT: PTSD

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 11033

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Monika Huebner <monika at d...> wrote:
 
"You can develop PTSD years and years after the original trauma. The
official diagnostic criteria include a specification whether the
disorder is

- acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months (if the
symptoms last only up to one month, it is not PTSD but ASD, Acute
Stress Disorder);

- chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more;   or

- with Delayed Onset: if onset of symptoms is at least 6 months 
after the stressor."

You forgot one of the diagnostic criteria: if your attorney tells you 
you have it. I know PTSD is real, but I've been soured on it. I handle 
lawsuits in my work (the risk management side of safety/risk 
management) and I've seen allegations of PTSD from people with a 
broken arm. It's God's gift to the plaintiff's bar. And the setting of 
diagnostic criteria is not just a sceintific, but an ideological and 
political act as well.

The thing is, it makes things harder on *you*, looking to understand 
and help people who really have it.

I don't know if Harry is going to have PTSD in the clinical, 
diagnostic sense; but he's going to be beat up pretty badly in this 
war, and he's going to suffer. A lot.