Psychological Diagnosis

The first case I will address involves a 30-year-old woman who was raped and beaten by a gang of young men as she was getting into her car after work. Her main symptoms are emotional unresponsiveness, an inability to recall the attack, difficulty falling and remaining asleep, having nightmares about being attacked, loss of interest in her usual leisure activities, refusal to return to work, and an incident in the hospital, in which a group of young residents in her room and she began screaming and begging them not to kill her. Her symptoms began when she was in the hospital after the attack and have continued for the past ten months.

This seems to me to be a clear-cut case of Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the essential feature of which is the "development of characteristic symptoms following a psychologically traumatic event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience." (APA, 1980, p.236). The diagnostic criteria for PTSD are as follows:

A. Existence of an identifiable stressor powerful enough to cause almost anyone distress.

B. Reexperiencing of the trauma, as shown by at least one of the foll

. . .
may experience symptoms identical to those of a panic attack. The symptoms of Panic Disorder include dyspnea, heart palpitations, chest pain, choking sensations, dizziness or vertigo, feelings of unreality, tingling in the hands and feet, hot or cold flashes, sweating, faintness, shaking, and a fear of dying or going crazy. The patient in this case clearly reports a specific phobic stimulus (the AIDS virus) which he seeks to avoid encountering at all costs. This means that he has neither Agoraphobia, Social Phobia, nor Panic Disorder, which requires that there be no "circumscribed phobic stimulus" which acts as the catalyst for the panic attacks (APA, 1980, p.230). Thus, diagnostic criterion A is satisfied. similarly, the patient is experiencing significant distress from the disturbance, and he appears to recognize the inappropriateness of his fear. These factors are evidenced by his reported problems going on dates or entertaining clients at work, and by the simple fact that he was distraught enough to consult a psychologist. These behaviors meet criterion B. Diagnostic criterion C is essentially a negative criterion, satisfied by the facts that the individual is obviously not Schizophrenic nor Obsessive-Compulsive (as
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Disorder PTSD, Psychotic Features, Personality Disorder, Panic Disorder, DSM-III APA, Disorder APA, Simple Phobia, Stress Disorder, Alcohol Dependence, , apa 1980, diagnostic criteria, mood congruent, psychotic features, mental disorder, congruent psychotic, mood congruent psychotic, congruent psychotic features, panic disorder, personality disorder, dsm-iii apa 1980, simple phobia, borderline personality, borderline personality disorder, depression mood congruent,
Approximate Word count = 1980
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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