This month's issue of Scientific American has a long article on PTSD, called "Soldiers' Stress: What Doctors Get Wrong about PTSD." Go here to read it. The key takeaways from the article, the authors say, are the following:
- The syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is under fire because its defining criteria are too broad, leading to rampant overdiagnosis.
- The flawed PTSD concept may mistake soldiers' natural process of adjustment to civilian life for dysfunction.
- Misdiagnosed soldiers receive the wrong treatments and risk becoming mired in a Veterans Administration system that encourages chronic disability.
Commentary to come.
