Current Perspectives on Clinical Studies of PTSD in Japan

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief overview of recent Japanese clinical investigations on psychological trauma that have been conducted in affiliation with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry and the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW). The studies focus on two main aspects of posttraumatic stress reaction: general human responses to traumatic events and the clinical nature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The first aspect involves the diversity of human responses to the event and individual sociodemographic backgrounds, whereas the second deals with the commonality of traumatic reactions. The main focus of the discussion is on the diversity of human traumatic responses and there is also a brief overview of recent studies on the nature and treatment of PTSD.