PTSD Vs Anxiety Disorders

PTSD and Anxiety Disorders

PTSD frequently coexists with other anxiety disorders. However, the symptoms of the two illnesses are markedly different. Anxiety disorders are characterized by symptoms such as acute anxiety, panic, and unease. Patients with these conditions frequently have sleeping difficulties, an inability to keep calm or rest, breathing difficulties, and physical discomfort such as chest pains and headaches (Ravindran & Stein, 2010). Individuals may also experience nausea, dry lips, and irregular heartbeats.

Symptoms of PTSD

PTSD, on the other hand, is an anxiety condition caused by witnessing a trauma or a sequence of traumatic events involving actual or threatened loss of life or major physical harm to an individual or others. An individual is said to be suffering from PTSD if they experience symptoms for a minimum of one month after experiencing trauma. PTSD symptoms may, however, fail to manifest until several months or years later. The symptoms of PTSD include persistently re-experiencing trauma through perception and images, hallucinating, dreaming, flashbacks and dissociative reactions, major psychological disturbances, and sensitivity to cues that are a reminder of the trauma (Hathaway et al., 2010). PTSD patients express avoidance of factors associated with trauma and also experience negative thoughts and mood which is characterized by forgetting aspects of the trauma, prolonged negative emotions, and inability to have positive emotions. Lastly, individuals experience arousal and reactivity which is accompanied by irritability, recklessness, and hypervigilance among others.

PTSD and Stressor Related Disorders

The explanation of stressor may have prompted DSM to move PTSD to a different chapter. Under Anxiety Disorders chapter, PTSD is explained to simply originate from experiencing or witnessing a stressor. However, under Stressor Related Disorders chapter, there are broader stressor criteria where an individual may have experienced first-hand extreme or constant exposure to trauma or learned that a relative and close friend experienced trauma.

References

Hathaway, L. M., Boals, A., & Banks, J. B. (2010). PTSD symptoms and dominant emotional response to a traumatic event: an examination of DSM-IV Criterion A2. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 23(1), 119-126.

Ravindran, L. N., & Stein, M. B. (2010). The pharmacologic treatment of anxiety disorders: a review of progress. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 71(7), 839-854.