DSM-IV-TR Criteria for PTSD
A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:
| 1. | the person experienced, witnessed, 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. | ||||
| 2. | the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. | ||||
B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:
| 1. | recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions | ||||
| 2. | recurrent distressing dreams of the event | ||||
| 3. | acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated) | ||||
| 4. | intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event | ||||
| 5. | physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event | ||||
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
| 1. | efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma | ||||
| 2. | efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma | ||||
| 3. | inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma | ||||
| 4. | markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities | ||||
| 5. | feeling of detachment or estrangement from others | ||||
| 6. | restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings) | ||||
| 7. | sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span) | ||||
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:
| 1. | difficulty falling or staying asleep | ||||
| 2. | irritability or outbursts of anger | ||||
| 3. | difficulty concentrating | ||||
| 4. | hypervigilance | ||||
| 5. | exaggerated startle response | ||||
E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than 1 month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
