Images of Trauma

In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association created the category of post-traumatic stress disorder - which offered official acceptance of an environmentally determined neurosis. This has had legal and financial reprecussions. This book looks at aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

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In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association created the category of the post-traumatic stress disorder - for the first time since Freud's early work (which he later rejected) this official acceptance that it is possible to have a wholly environmentally determined neurosis, has had immense legal and financial reprecussions. This book looks at all aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder and in particular hysteria. The first part of the book looks at the history of hysteria since Freud and his contemporary Pierre Janet raised the question of whether hysteria is precipitated by environmental events, the second part asks whether the recognition, of post-traumatic stress disorder has implications for the other neuroses, or indeed the larger notion of mental illness.