Understanding Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A Different Perspective on PTSD

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a condition that is often diagnosed as an illness, a viewpoint that we must question.

As we have learned, stress is an emotional state that we can escape from, and this perspective is essential to understanding PTSD in a different way.

This disorder is nothing more than the stress that is generated due to trauma or after it has occurred in a person's life.

Although there are people who have been diagnosed with this supposed illness, it is crucial to analyze the problem from a perspective of personal power and not pathology.

The idea that it is an incurable disease takes away our ability to act, while seeing it as an emotional state gives us back control over it.

The Mechanism of Trauma: Focusing on Loss

This state occurs when we focus in a very intensely, and sometimes solely, on the trauma that generated the stress.

It may be an event that was quite cruel, difficult, or hard, or perhaps the loss of something we loved and held dear.

It is this mental fixation on the traumatic event or loss that keeps the stress state alive, long after the situation is over.

Our mind remains anchored in that moment of pain, reliving it over and over again, which prevents us from healing and moving on with our lives.

The Root of Trauma: The Example of Lost Identity

Often, the root of trauma is much deeper than it seems, as in the case of the mentor who lost his identity when he left the army.

He had defined himself not by who he was as a person, but by what he did, that is, by his profession as a soldier.

When he stopped being a soldier, he felt an immense emptiness because he no longer knew who she was, and that was the true origin of her stress.

The problem with many treatments is that no one bothers to figure out the true root of the trauma or the emotional state she's in.

Without understanding the origin, any attempt at a solution will be superficial and won't be able to resolve the problem in