I have five major web sites, Destress Yourself, Destress Yourself Blog, Destress for the EMS, Elizabeth Stanfill (which is our newsletter archive), and Frazier Park, CA. I also have some research tools to each of these web sites, that show me what people type into the search engine to get to my web sites. Really cool huh? I love that stuff!
The number one phrase that is used, everyday, to get to my websites is, "How to Destress Yourself."
Everyday, I am helping people to 'destress yourself'.
If I only had a few minutes to talk with you and you really needed help to Destress Yourself, this is what I would tell you.
There is a stress response, better known as the 'fight or flight' response, that is activated when we face stressful situations. When the stress response is activated it increases our heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, blood circulation, and causes our blood-flows and many other body functions to shift.
Now, not everyone reacts to each situation the same way because we all think differently. Our reactions (thoughts about a situation) are what causes this stress response. So, a situation happens (it could be anything), we see it as stressful (we think doubt, fear, and worry), and then our stress response kicks in.
Negative emotions like anger, frustration, disgust, sadness, anxiety, irritation, aggravation, hatred, misery, depression, grief, and nervousness, imitate the stress response. So every time you have a negative emotion (for some, this could be all day long) you are creating wear and tear on your body.
SIDE NOTE: these negative emotions are standard and repetitive for many (the stressed) and that is why I call them habitual ways of reacting. These habitual ways of reacting can be decreased and eliminated.
So, in order to Destress Yourself, you must discover how, when, and why you are activating this stress response, and then learn how to decrease and ultimately eliminate it. Or, you could just change your negative reactions. This may be very easy or this may be very difficult, it just depends on your willingness and commitment.
Let me give you and example of activating the stress response. A very stressed out person has a habit of worrying about everything because of the way they look at the world and a very relaxed person has a habit of having faith about most things because of the way they look at the world.
So, if I were to ask a question like, "I wonder what is going to happen to our economy?" A stressed out person would think and talk about all the things that could go wrong, all the while experiencing the negative emotions mentioned above. A relaxed person would think and talk about all of the positive things that are in store for us and experience more positive emotions.
When the stressed out person starts to think and talk about all the things that could go wrong, guess what? That's right, the stress response kicks in. The stress response may kick in all day long for this person because of the way they think. Their thought process is full of doubt, fear, and worry (stressful). Not only does this person have a very habitual and stressful way of thinking, they also have a very stressful habit of kicking in the stress response.
This stress response is causing emotional illnesses like depression and anxiety, mental illnesses like a racing mind, the inability to concentrate, and indecisiveness, and physical illnesses like gastrointestinal problems, head aches, neck aches, and shoulder aches from the tension.
This stress response is causing individuals to do things, that they think make them feel better, like binge eating, drinking, smoking, numbing through drugs and medication, as well as immoral behavior like addiction to pornography or inappropriate sexual behavior.
This stress response is wearing out the mind and body and therefore, causes exhaustion and fatigue. This causes mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion, also known as Burnout.
STRESS IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF EVERY ILLNESS! I believe this with all my heart and if you knew what I know, and see the things I see, and have seen, you would believe it too.
The best way to Destress Yourself is with education and action. Last week we discussed that "IT IS TIME' to take responsibility for your life.
Take responsibility for your life by learning how, when, and why you are activating the stress response. The best way to do this is by learning to relax. I mean really learn how to relax, which is the opposite of the stress response. We can call it the relaxation response.
Once you learn to relax, or activate the relaxation response, you will be very skilled at noticing when you are activating the stress response because of your awareness. When you learn to relax you become more aware of your mind and body because of your ability to implement the relaxation response at anytime and anywhere.
You have a choice, you can activate the stress response, which is unintentional, or you can activate the relaxation response, which is intentional. That is the difference between a stressed out person, who lives their life unintentionally, and a relaxed person, who lives their life full of intention.
With that said, I would like you to join me for our FREE Tele Class on, you guessed it, Learning to Relax.
This Wednesday, January 27, 2010, at 7 am Pacific Time (10 am Eastern).
Dial in number 1-213-289-0500
Access Code 205356#
Meet You There!
Have a wonderful week!!!
Don't forget to have fun and be playful!
Please email me if you have any questions, I would love to hear from you.
elizabeth@destressyourself.com
Showing posts with label acute stress disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acute stress disorder. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD PART II
DSM-IV-TR FOR PTSD Cont.
CRITERION D: HYPER-AROUSAL
Persistent symptoms of increasing arousal (not present before the trauma), indicated by at least two of the following:
1. Difficulty falling or staying asleep
2. Irritability or outbursts of anger
3. Difficulty concentrating
4. Hyper-vigilance
5. Exaggerated startle response
CRITERION E: DURATION
Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month.
CRITERION F: FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of function.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than three months
Chronic: If duration of symptoms is three months or more
Specify if:
With or without delay onset: Onset of symptoms at least six months after stressor.
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association. (200). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association
CRITERION D: HYPER-AROUSAL
Persistent symptoms of increasing arousal (not present before the trauma), indicated by at least two of the following:
1. Difficulty falling or staying asleep
2. Irritability or outbursts of anger
3. Difficulty concentrating
4. Hyper-vigilance
5. Exaggerated startle response
CRITERION E: DURATION
Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month.
CRITERION F: FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of function.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than three months
Chronic: If duration of symptoms is three months or more
Specify if:
With or without delay onset: Onset of symptoms at least six months after stressor.
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association. (200). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD PART I
DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD
In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of it's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR). The diagnostic criteria (Criteria A-F) are specified below.
Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptoms clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning.
CRITERION A: STRESSOR
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
1. The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.
2. The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, it may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
CRITERION B: INTRUSIVE RECOLLECTIONS
The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:
1. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
2. Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: in children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
3. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashbacks episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: in children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
4. Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolizes or resemble an aspect of traumatic event.
5. Physiological reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
CRITERION C: AVOIDANT/NUMBING
Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following:
1. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma.
2. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma.
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.
4. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities.
5. Feeling detachment or estrangement from others.
6. Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings).
7. Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span).
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association, (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.
In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of it's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR). The diagnostic criteria (Criteria A-F) are specified below.
Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptoms clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning.
CRITERION A: STRESSOR
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
1. The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.
2. The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, it may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
CRITERION B: INTRUSIVE RECOLLECTIONS
The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:
1. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
2. Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: in children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
3. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashbacks episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: in children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
4. Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolizes or resemble an aspect of traumatic event.
5. Physiological reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
CRITERION C: AVOIDANT/NUMBING
Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following:
1. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma.
2. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma.
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.
4. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities.
5. Feeling detachment or estrangement from others.
6. Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings).
7. Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span).
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association, (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Acute Stress, Critical Incident Stress, or Post Traumatic Stress
When I was in 5th grade I experienced a trauma that caused my PTSD. Although I did not know that I had PTSD, I did discover that years later.
When in my 20's, when I was an Emergency Medical Technician, my PTSD just got worse. I experienced several traumas, through the calls I ran, and my signs and symptoms really made it hard to handle life. I was literally hanging on my a thread most of the time.
My behavior was very bizarre to me and I had little control and so I started to see therapists. I had met several therapists, who seemed crazy themselves, and finally settled on one female who had not been in her field that long.
After some therapy sessions she diagnosed me as having acute stress disorder because of this little girl who died in my arms, at the hospital, as I was moving her over onto the hospital gurney.
This little girl had a disease that if you touched her or handled her too hard her bones would break. She was about 9 or 10, I think, which was the same age as my son at the time.
There were so many circumstances that made this event so traumatic, and critical, because it was a Critical Incident.
First, I knew the patient and her Father, who happened to be there, because I had transported her several times before.
Second, she was the same age as my son.
Third, we could not perform CPR because she was a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and therefore, we felt helpless.
Fourth, when we were going Code 3 while transporting her, it was rush hour traffic in the morning in Los Angeles and that created a severe delay in getting her to the hospital. More helplessness.
Finally, her father was crying, the kind of painful crying like someone suffering like you never heard them suffer before. He was also tugging on me and begging me to do something and I could not.
Even as I write this now, I feel the pain and I cry.
I am grateful for the therapist who helped me recognize my reactions to this event even though, knowing what I know now and looking back, this was not the incident that caused my PTSD. This incident was just one that made my signs and symptoms worse.
In my thirties, after I received my Bachelors in Behavior Science and my Masters in Counseling, I became a Critical Incident Stress Management Counselor and I trained other Peer Counselors. This experience, with my education, helped me see how so many Emergency Workers and hear about incidents that may, or may not of caused, their PTSD.
You see, when we are in the Emergency Field, we see so many traumas that it is difficult to tell what caused our signs and symptoms of stress whether it be Acute, Critical, or Post Traumatic. Another factor is, we also lived life before being in the Emergency Field, and from that life we had stress before we experienced our new found stress.
What I am trying to say is, sometimes we have to look at our past, beyond our life in the Emergency Field, before we can truly discover all of the answers.
Caution!!! If you work with a Counselor or Therapist who does not have a lot experience with Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) or PTSD they can truly make things worse by mixing your past with your present. Make sure that if you see someone that they have extensive experience working with Emergency Personnel or the Military, with trauma. The best resource is to get a referral from someone who has had success with a therapist concerning this type of stress.
If you are having a hard time living life and/or people are having a hard time being around you, get some help.
I you need help, please email me at elizabethstanfill@gmail.com, and we can create some intervention and direction for you.
I hope this is helpful!
Until next post...
Elizabeth
When in my 20's, when I was an Emergency Medical Technician, my PTSD just got worse. I experienced several traumas, through the calls I ran, and my signs and symptoms really made it hard to handle life. I was literally hanging on my a thread most of the time.
My behavior was very bizarre to me and I had little control and so I started to see therapists. I had met several therapists, who seemed crazy themselves, and finally settled on one female who had not been in her field that long.
After some therapy sessions she diagnosed me as having acute stress disorder because of this little girl who died in my arms, at the hospital, as I was moving her over onto the hospital gurney.
This little girl had a disease that if you touched her or handled her too hard her bones would break. She was about 9 or 10, I think, which was the same age as my son at the time.
There were so many circumstances that made this event so traumatic, and critical, because it was a Critical Incident.
First, I knew the patient and her Father, who happened to be there, because I had transported her several times before.
Second, she was the same age as my son.
Third, we could not perform CPR because she was a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and therefore, we felt helpless.
Fourth, when we were going Code 3 while transporting her, it was rush hour traffic in the morning in Los Angeles and that created a severe delay in getting her to the hospital. More helplessness.
Finally, her father was crying, the kind of painful crying like someone suffering like you never heard them suffer before. He was also tugging on me and begging me to do something and I could not.
Even as I write this now, I feel the pain and I cry.
I am grateful for the therapist who helped me recognize my reactions to this event even though, knowing what I know now and looking back, this was not the incident that caused my PTSD. This incident was just one that made my signs and symptoms worse.
In my thirties, after I received my Bachelors in Behavior Science and my Masters in Counseling, I became a Critical Incident Stress Management Counselor and I trained other Peer Counselors. This experience, with my education, helped me see how so many Emergency Workers and hear about incidents that may, or may not of caused, their PTSD.
You see, when we are in the Emergency Field, we see so many traumas that it is difficult to tell what caused our signs and symptoms of stress whether it be Acute, Critical, or Post Traumatic. Another factor is, we also lived life before being in the Emergency Field, and from that life we had stress before we experienced our new found stress.
What I am trying to say is, sometimes we have to look at our past, beyond our life in the Emergency Field, before we can truly discover all of the answers.
Caution!!! If you work with a Counselor or Therapist who does not have a lot experience with Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) or PTSD they can truly make things worse by mixing your past with your present. Make sure that if you see someone that they have extensive experience working with Emergency Personnel or the Military, with trauma. The best resource is to get a referral from someone who has had success with a therapist concerning this type of stress.
If you are having a hard time living life and/or people are having a hard time being around you, get some help.
I you need help, please email me at elizabethstanfill@gmail.com, and we can create some intervention and direction for you.
I hope this is helpful!
Until next post...
Elizabeth
 |
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE EMS STRESS |
Friday, February 13, 2009
ACUTE STRESS DISORDER; CAUSES
When a fearful or threatening event is perceived, humans react innately to survive: They either are ready for battle or run away (hence the term "fight-or-flight response").
The nature of the acute stress response is all too familiar. Its hallmarks are an almost instantaneous surge in heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, breathing and metabolism, and a tensing of muscles. Enhanced cardiac output and accelerated metabolism are essential to mobilizing for fast action.
This explanation is thought to be in part a cause for anxiety disorders. Yet over the past decade, the limitations of the acute stress response as a model for understanding anxiety have become more apparent.
The first and most obvious limitation is that the acute stress response relates to arousal rather than anxiety.
Anxiety differs from arousal in several ways: First, with anxiety, the concern about the stressor is out of proportion to the realistic threat. Second, anxiety is often associated with elaborate mental and behavioral activities designed to avoid the unpleasant symptoms of a full-blown anxiety or panic attack. Third, anxiety is usually longer lived than arousal. Fourth, anxiety can occur without exposure to an external stressor.
Cognitive factors, especially the way people interpret or think about stressful events, play a critical role in the etiology of anxiety. A decisive factor is the individual's perception, which can intensify or dampen the response.
One of the most salient negative cognitions in anxiety is the sense of uncontrollability. It is typified by a state of helplessness due to a perceived inability to predict, control or obtain desired results. These are among the factors considered as causes of anxiety disorders such as acute stress disorder.
Sources:
The nature of the acute stress response is all too familiar. Its hallmarks are an almost instantaneous surge in heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, breathing and metabolism, and a tensing of muscles. Enhanced cardiac output and accelerated metabolism are essential to mobilizing for fast action.
This explanation is thought to be in part a cause for anxiety disorders. Yet over the past decade, the limitations of the acute stress response as a model for understanding anxiety have become more apparent.
The first and most obvious limitation is that the acute stress response relates to arousal rather than anxiety.
Anxiety differs from arousal in several ways: First, with anxiety, the concern about the stressor is out of proportion to the realistic threat. Second, anxiety is often associated with elaborate mental and behavioral activities designed to avoid the unpleasant symptoms of a full-blown anxiety or panic attack. Third, anxiety is usually longer lived than arousal. Fourth, anxiety can occur without exposure to an external stressor.
Cognitive factors, especially the way people interpret or think about stressful events, play a critical role in the etiology of anxiety. A decisive factor is the individual's perception, which can intensify or dampen the response.
One of the most salient negative cognitions in anxiety is the sense of uncontrollability. It is typified by a state of helplessness due to a perceived inability to predict, control or obtain desired results. These are among the factors considered as causes of anxiety disorders such as acute stress disorder.
Sources:
- American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
- Anxiety and Its Disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic (Guilford Press)
- Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Journal of Anxiety Disorders
- Journal of Traumatic Stress
- Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
- War Psychiatry: Textbook of Military Medicine
- Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Center for PTSD
- Department of Health & Human Services
Monday, February 9, 2009
ACUTE STRESS DISORDER; DEFINITION
Acute stress disorder develops within one month after an individual experiences or sees an event involving a threat or actual death, serious injury, or physical violation to the individual or others, and responded to this event with strong feelings of fear, helplessness or horror. The diagnosis was established to identify those individuals who would eventually develop post-traumatic stress disorder. As far back as World War I this condition was referred to as "shell shock," in which there are similarities between reactions of soldiers who suffered concussions caused by exploding bombs or shells and those who suffered blows to their central nervous systems. Civilians may also suffer from it. More recently, ASD was brought to light as it became clear that for a short period, people might exhibit PTSD-like symptoms immediately after a trauma.
Trauma has both a medical and a psychiatric definition. Medically, trauma refers to a serious or critical bodily injury, wound or shock. This definition is often associated with trauma medicine practiced in emergency rooms and represents a popular view of the term. Psychiatrically, trauma has assumed a different meaning and refers to an experience that is emotionally painful, distressful or shocking, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.
Psychiatric trauma, or emotional harm, is essentially a normal response to an extreme event. It involves the creation of emotional memories about the distressful event that are stored deep within the brain. In general, it is believed that the more direct the exposure to the traumatic event, the higher the risk for emotional harm. Thus in a school shooting, for example, the student who is injured probably will be most severely affected emotionally; and the student who sees a classmate shot or killed is likely to be more emotionally affected than the student who was in another part of the school when the violence occurred. But even secondhand exposure to violence can be traumatic. For this reason, all children and adolescents exposed to violence or a disaster, even if only through graphic media reports, should be watched for signs of emotional distress.
Sources:
- American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
- Anxiety and Its Disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic (Guilford Press)
- Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Journal of Anxiety Disorders
- Journal of Traumatic Stress
- Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
- War Psychiatry: Textbook of Military Medicine
- Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Center for PTSD
- Department of Health & Human Services
Friday, January 23, 2009
DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD Part II
Criterion D: hyper-arousal
Persistent symptoms of increasing arousal (not present before the trauma), indicated by at least two of the following:
1. Difficulty falling or staying asleep
2. Irritability or outbursts of anger
3. Difficulty concentrating
4. Hyper-vigilance
5. Exaggerated startle response
Criterion E: duration
Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month.
Criterion F: functional significance
The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than three months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is three months or more
Specify if:
With or Without delay onset: Onset of symptoms at least six months after the stressor
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM-IV-TR ( Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD Part I
DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD
In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR). The diagnostic criteria (Criterion A-F) are specified below.Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include a history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptom clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning.
Criterion A: stressor
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:1. The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.
2. The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: in children, it may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
Criterion B: intrusive recollection
The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:1. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
2. Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: in children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content
3. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: in children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
4. Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
5. Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
Criterion C: avoidant/numbing
Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following:1. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
2. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
4. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
5. Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
6. Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
7. Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM-IV-TR ( Fourth ed.). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association |
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE EMS STRESS |
Monday, January 19, 2009
Acute Stress Disorder & PTSD
For those of us in the EMS, existence may be easy or it may be hard, depending on where we are in life. Life tends to go in phases, easy sometimes and hard other times. Let us take responsibility for our lives and move towards a life we truly desire no matter where we are. We have the power.
If you are having a hard time with moving forward in life you may have Acute Stress Disorder or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are many signs and symptoms for both disorders but you may want to ask yourself if you are happy. Or you may ask yourself, "when was the last time I was happy?"
When we have Acute or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder we may be very unhappy. If this sounds like you then you may want to seek professional help. These are very serious disorders and can disrupt our ability to function in life.
We have been talking about moving forward and setting goals. If we are unable to do this, chances are we may have Acute or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I have met many individuals who have overcome these disorders, including myself.
In the next couple of posts I will share the information from the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) on both disorders.
This is information that is very helpful.
Stay tuned...
If you would like support in learning to destress yourself then follow this blog.
If you have any comments or questions please use the comment function on this blog and I will comment in return:)
Have fun and be playful.
Elizabeth
If you are having a hard time with moving forward in life you may have Acute Stress Disorder or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are many signs and symptoms for both disorders but you may want to ask yourself if you are happy. Or you may ask yourself, "when was the last time I was happy?"
When we have Acute or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder we may be very unhappy. If this sounds like you then you may want to seek professional help. These are very serious disorders and can disrupt our ability to function in life.
We have been talking about moving forward and setting goals. If we are unable to do this, chances are we may have Acute or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I have met many individuals who have overcome these disorders, including myself.
In the next couple of posts I will share the information from the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) on both disorders.
This is information that is very helpful.
Stay tuned...
If you would like support in learning to destress yourself then follow this blog.
If you have any comments or questions please use the comment function on this blog and I will comment in return:)
Have fun and be playful.
Elizabeth
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