Chet638

Stress Reactions May Turn Into PTSD

Everyone watching horrific events - seeing bombings andbloodied and mangled, crying people in the media as well as the Internet - experience trauma. It is perfectly normal to get an acute stress reaction, which includes anxiety, hyper-vigilance, greater startle response, horror and grief for your terrible events felt by the victims and their families and wonder about our own safety which of our families. These emotions were normal.

People who have experienced trauma before or individuals who have problems with existing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSDanxiety, ) and depression are more susceptible to the trauma and could experience exacerbations of their past PTSD or any other symptoms.

When people are traumatized, they think powerless. That powerless feeling can become maladaptive feelings of helplessness that become depression, anxiety and panic. Or we become angry to empower ourselves. In order to help, being proactive is adaptive; that is why there was such an outpouring of spontaneous offers of money, aid and memorials - the desire to do something on 9/11 resulted in lines around the block as people tried to donate their own blood.

America is comparatively late to the game in getting used to managing the cognitive dissonance of dialectical opposites: wanting ourselves to feel safe yet wanting our freedom and privacy to accomplish what we want, when we want, and just how we wish. We cringe at encroachments or discussions on our independence: national identity cards, increased screenings at public venues of gathering, profiling - but, we want to feel less risky. We fear totalitarianism but we are voting more monies to create more shades of "1984" than ever before. At the same time, we realize we are coming under video surveillance "for our own good" by third parties everywhere but in our own homes, even though we are comforted to see the new technologies of face recognition and infrared detection, to have a cooperative citizenry provide the video to help bring the progenitors of these heinous crimes to justice. And even in our personal others, homes and Google are mining Big Data for patterns of Internet use that reveal information regarding someone user or families.

Getting the natural capacity or learning the relevant skills of perspective, understanding to use probability/possibility thinking and making use of reality (in other words, stating the positive and after that acknowledging the negative) in order to avoid catastrophizing all results in resilience and lessening the percentages of these acute stress reactions turning into PTSD.

Alan Manevitz, M.D. is actually a Psychiatrist in New York City, where he maintains a private practice. Dr. Manevitz is a clinical associate professor at Payne Whitney-Weill Cornell Medical Center, an attending psychiatrist at Ny Presbyterian and Lennox Hill Hospitals, and teaches on the Weill-Cornell Medical School.

Dr. Manevitz continues to be named between the Top Doctors in America by Castle Connolly Medical Ltd., New York Time’s Super Doctors, New York City Magazine’s Best Psychiatrists in Ny, and Best Doctors of America.

Psychiatrists New York City