Question:
I know nothing about psychology, but this seems the most
appropriate newsgroup, so:
A friend of mine was involved in a car crash and apart from
the physical injuries his Doctor says he suffered from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is claiming compensation
from his insurer which he will get for his physical injuries.
However, one of the clauses in the contract states that they
will *not* pay out for psychiatric or mental illness.
The contract was written in 1987. My naive questions are:
1. Was PTSD a recognised condition in 1987 ?
2. Is it a psychiatric or mental illness ( I dunno.... :-) ) ?
Answer:
That is more a legal question than a psychological one. From our
perspective, it is a Disorder (the 'D' in PTSD). It is emminently
treatable, but can become a significant problem if left untreated.
Actually, if you want to create some rough and tumble, read
van der Kolk, Bessel. 1987. Psychological Trauma. Washington, DC:
American Psychiatric Press, Inc.
In here, there is a LOT of evidence that PTSD is actually a PHYSIOLOGICAL
disorder, because the traumatic event screws up your noradrenergic system's
ability to respond because of hyperarousal. Armed with the evidence
cited in this book, you have a good case for PTSD being a physical,
not mental, disorder.
In a recent covnersation with a GP the doctor opined that the difference be-
tween a psychiatrist and a neurologist was getting smaller and smaller all
the time.
Unless you accept the exisitence of a mind that transcends physical existance,
it's all phsyiology, isn't it?
Literature on Trauma and Dissociativ disorders often refers to
Dissociative Disorders _and_ PTSD as being seperately classified.
From my layman's perspective, I don't see why.
Is PTSD a Dissociative Disorder? If not, what is it that seperates it
from dissociative disorders.
Judith Herman in _Trauma and Recovery_ calls DID a part of "complex
PTSD", whcih she believes should also encompass borderline PD, because
they both involve different degree of identity fragmentation due to
early childhood trauma.
But in your previous post you mention the basis probably exists for
calling PTSD a physiological rather then psychological disorder.
AH the walls of epistemology shield us from enlightenment :-)
Obviously some of psychology will eventually migrate over to
neurology once the brain is better mapped and imaged and chemically
analyzed and so on.
I happen to be suffering from both PTSD and DID. I am considering
changing from physics to Neural Systems just to try to find more
about myself from a scientific point of view.
The physical symtoms that go along with both DID and PTSD are very
strong. But that doesn't mean anything all by itself.
It is my conjecture that child sexual abuse essentially poisons
the brain, hormonally, and this plus the "psychological" aspect of
contradictory input data (my parents protect me but my parents threaten
my life) short circuits the little developing cognitive domains and
splats them into disconnected pieces somehow.
Perhaps in a similar way to how crystal growth can be manipulated
with the proper or improper amounts of heat and pressure and chemicals.
Perhaps not in a similar way but there may be other applicable models.
