Doctors, nurses, and soldiers have some key things in common.
, that is, not one life-threatening event, but multiple events or chronic feelings of being unsafe. Examples include children in abusive homes, or people living through civil conflict. Although our mind and body’s responses to stressful situations are adaptive, a flight-or-fight response meant to protect us in the moment, we are not meant to live with alarm bells constantly blaring.
A portion of individuals in such conditions develop complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or c-PTSD. While “classic” PTSD is marked by reliving the event, avoidance of reminders, and hyperreactivity to common stressors, complex PTSD is characterized in adults by, difficulty in relationships, destructive behaviors , difficulty controlling emotions, and feelings of shame and guilt.
We can take cues from the military on how to proceed next. The military has evolved tremendously in its thinking on mental health from an era of significant stigma around the topic to now, where mental health is front and center. This was in large part catalyzed by World War II. Anticipating the psychosocial needs of 20 million veterans, the Public Health Service and Veterans Administration grew a formal mental health workforce where there had been none.