Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: How to Recognize It, How to Treat It

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Published on Dec 9, 2016

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http://www.medicinaeinformazione.com/ / medicinaeinformazione A traumatic event, an emotional shock, a natural psychophysiological response that in some people can continue over time, transforming into post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that can evolve spontaneously and regress within a few months or that can become chronic and therefore require therapeutic interventions. And to find out what conditions can generate post-traumatic stress disorder, we met with Prof. Gino Pozzi, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Catholic University of Rome, who explained to us that trauma should be understood as exposure to an environmental event that, due to its particular intensity or violence, makes it impossible to correctly process what happened, both from a psychophysiological point of view and in everyday life for those who have experienced a traumatic event first-hand (natural phenomenon, accident, violence...) or for those who have witnessed it. Traumas can be major, and in this case we speak of traumas with a capital T, or more subtle traumas but still capable of affecting our emotional balance, and in this case we speak of traumas with a lowercase T, which can still be difficult to process especially for subjects with an intrinsic psychological fragility, for children in the developmental age or for people already subjected to stress... The most common symptoms can be phenomena of re-experiencing unprocessed memories, episodes of recurring dreams with disturbed awakenings, avoidance behaviors (avoiding returning to the place where the accident that caused the trauma occurred for example) which result in a lowering of emotional functioning that can also lead to reactive depression and hyperactivation of the neurovegetative system, a psychophysiological reactivity that can also give rise to physical symptoms. The immediate emotional shock and the post-traumatic phase can coexist in the same person or can be present in different ways (there are those who suffer from a strong initial shock but manage to overcome the trauma well in a short time and those who apparently do not have a pathological reaction in the phase following a stressful and traumatic event but then develop a complex syndrome over time) and the treatment must be personalized based on the overall reaction that takes into account the neurobiological and psychological aspect but also the personal reaction with one's own coping style and resilience, therefore the ability to face an adverse event. Treatments in the initial phase can be pharmacological with the use of benzodiazepines or central beta-blockers, while for the disorder that continues over time it is important to combine professional psychotherapy, such as the EMDR technique, in addition to reducing environmental pressure and stimuli related to the memory in order to be able to process the trauma by making the memory a painful passage that however does not affect functionality and daily life.

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