Post-traumatic stress disorder

Clinicians have recognized juxtaposition of mental syndromes to traumatic events for more than 200 years. Observations of traumarelated syndromes were documented by psychoanalists, including Freud, and the relation between neurosis and trauma was mentioned. Interest in post-traumatic mental disorders was stimulated by observations of “battle fatigue”, “shell shock” and soldier’s heart”. Trauma-related events first of all disturb emotions, and emotional intelligence is transformed. What does it mean to be emotionally intelligent? To be emotionally intelligent is to have the personal skills that characterize a rich and balanced personality. Emotional intelligence includes, as Aristotle put, the rare ability “to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way”. Referring on long term experience there was a need to formulate a diagnosis, which could be proper for those individuals who experienced trauma-related events. For this purpose the diagnostic category of “posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” was introduced into a formal classification of mental disorders in 1980 in DSM-III. However, it was accepted with some skepticism. Referring on various references and clinical experience we conclude that PTSD did not appear spontaneously. It was a consequence of progress and development of psychiatry. In the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published in 1952, stress response syndrome was listed under the heading of "gross stress reactions." In its second edition in 1968 trauma-related disorders were conceptualised as just one example of situational disorders. DSM-III, published in 1980, listed PTSD as a subcategory of anxiety disorders. In the DSM-IV, published in 1994, and in DSM-IV-TR, published in 2000, PTSD is also listed in subcategory of anxiety disorders