Discussion of the difference between the Western definition and application of the term “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and its definition and application in other cultures.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was added to the DSM inventory in 1980, largely in response to symptoms found among American veterans of the Vietnam conflict. PTSD has become rather a household term in the West but continues to be much debated in terms of how it describes non-Western patients and in terms of the diagnosis’s implications.