Complex PTSD
The fulfiller and the diagnostic criteria for PTSD It includes symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, increased alertness, drowsiness, avoidance of external triggers as well as thoughts and feelings that remind one of the traumatic event.
Complex symptom picture
In some cases, one also sees symptoms beyond what characterizes PTSD, where the person, in addition to the above-mentioned ailments, struggles with a pervasive:
Negative self-image (thoughts of being diminished, destroyed or worthless)
Relational difficulties (challenges related to maintaining relationships and feeling close to others)
Difficulties with affect regulation (increased emotional reactivity, outbursts, self-destructive behavior, dissociation under pressure, emotional flattening and inability to feel positive emotions such as joy, belonging and contact)
Often you see too bodily pain or somatic complaints. This often manifests itself as complex somatic conditions without medical findings and/or changes in pain threshold.
The ailments must be of such a severity that it reduces function across several areas of life.
Why does someone develop complex ptsd?
In such cases, the term is often used complex PTSD. This is a condition that can develop if the person from early childhood and adolescence has experienced traumatic events, or extensive overwhelming and recurring trauma in adulthood.
What types of experiences are considered serious trauma?
In other words, these are often repetitive or repetitive events of an extremely threatening nature, where recovering from the threat is difficult or impossible. Examples of this could be captivity, torture, slavery, genocide, intimate partner violence, sexual assault or physical abuse.
Treatment of complex PTSD
There are several treatment methods that have proven effective for treating PTSD and complex PTSD. Common to all is that they implement exposure in its approach. This means that one wants to identify various forms of avoidance and actively break behaviors that perpetuate the disorder. Gradually reduce the intervention of the past in the present. Teach the body and mind, through experience, that what happened before does not happen now.
PTSD and complex PTSD test
On this links you will find a questionnaire "The international trauma questionnaire (ITQ)" which is shown to have both reliability and validity associated with the measurement of key aspects and symptoms associated with both types of conditions as defined in ICD-11.
Complex PTSD is introduced as a separate diagnosis in ICD-11.
