Trauma and Abuse (Physical, Sexual, Emotional) /PTSD/ Acute Stress Disorder/Occupational Stress

Trauma may be defined as a witnessing or being confronted with an event or events that involve an actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person’s response may involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Trauma does not always result in PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Symptoms of PTSD involve dreams or nightmares related to the trauma, avoidance behaviors of thoughts or flashbacks, hyper arousal, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, hyper vigilance, startle response, emotional upsets when reminded of trauma, physical reactions relating to memories of the trauma, expressing anger at significant others. and forgetting parts of the event. Having these symptoms present for longer than 1 month results in a PTSD diagnosis.

Acute stress disorder results from trauma with symptoms as above but the symptoms are present for 3 days to one month.

Occupational stress is ongoing stress that is related to the workplace. The stress may have to do with the responsibilities associated with the work itself, or be caused by conditions that are based in the corporate culture or personality conflicts. As with other forms of tension, occupation stress can eventually affect both physical and emotional well being if not managed effectively.

Treatment reduces the symptoms and/or eliminates the symptoms. Treatment available includes EMDR, Hypnosis, Art Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy.