MENTAL HEALTH | PSYCHOLOGY | TRAUMA

Why The C in C-PTSD Will Haunt You

Because childhood trauma shows up in everything we do. Forever.

C-PTSD as a Word Cloud

Many are familiar with the term PTSD — an acronym for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — typically associated with war veterans.

The term originated when observers of those returning from the perils of the Second World War noted that many soldiers were left emotion-less, with a “thousand-yard stare”.

The term “shell shock” preceded this, coined in World War I by British psychologist Charles Samuel Myers, CBE, who was a founding member of The Psychological Society. Myers was tasked with studying soldiers who suffered from a range of peculiar but severe symptoms, including body tremors, stammering, sensory numbness, and impaired eyesight.

The Thousand-Yard Stare recognised in soldiers with symptoms of PTSD

In the 1960’s, following the Vietnam War, medical and mental health experts began delving deeper into combat stress. Their studies led to the term: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) identifying a mental health condition that is typically trigged in adulthood by experiencing or witnessing a singularly terrifying or…