Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

An article in The Wall Street Journal aroused these thoughts ("Green Beret in Tesla Explosion Suffered From PTSD, Authorities Say"/Jan. 3, 2025). PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) can occur in anyone, even children, when stress exceeds the mind's capacity to cope with it. Its possible feared, painful symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, others) are not the real problem since they reflect the mind's normal healthy attempt to re-integrate after experiencing the unbearable stress. Thus the most effective treatment is education and psychotherapy with medication, which can produce serious side effects and interfere with thinking, being avoided or used only briefly. Which is not how it's usually treated.

As an aside, many American veterans who are receiving compensation for PTSD never experienced combat or even left the USA. Their symptoms reflect early life psychological issues exacerbated by recent extreme stress. That its diagnosis can involve financial compensation complicates its diagnosis and treatment. In Israel, which has had several wars and continuing danger, PTSD is treated differently. Their suffering soldiers are explained the nature of PTSD before being sent home for several weeks leave. They then return to their unit without the PTSD symptoms lingering. These statistics were remembered from a past article in Armed Forces and Society, an outstanding international journal on military and related matters. It's well worth subscribing.

Though painful and feared, anxiety and depression (the "depressing" of feelings) are instinctive survival and developmental mechanisms of the human condition. Both can indicate the presence of danger, external or internal. With anxiety it might be hearing a close-by noise while traveling a crime-ridden neighborhood alone at night; with depression it could be the sensing of an impending long feared feeling for intimacy or self-assertion. A common problem is when the primary goal is to avoid the anxiety or depression rather than interpreting its reason. Which, admittedly, is not easy since emotional conflict is part of human personality development and distinguishing actual from unrealistic danger can be difficult since the unconscious is powerful.
Normal anxiety and depression associated with healthy grieving, as after the death of a loved one or the loss of a bodily function due to accident or illness, are exceptions to these statements.