Association for Psychological Science

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2167702613483112 cpx.sagepub.com Empirical Article Events severe enough to meet the A criterion of posttrau-matic stress disorder (PTSD) can lead to PTSD. No other diagnosis, except for acute stress disorder, hinges on the classification of events. To qualify for the diagnosis in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980, p. 236), events had to be severe enough to meet the A criterion by being “generally outside the range of usual human experience” and evoking “significant symptoms of distress in most people. ” Moreover, there was an implied continuum of kinds of events: “Some stressors frequently produce the disorder (e.g., torture) and others produce it only occa-sionally (e.g., car accidents). ” Later, in the DSM-IV-TR, the type of severity as defined by the A criterion was restricted to those events in which “the person experienced, wit-nessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others ” (America