The Psychiatrization of Post-Traumatic Distress: Issues for Social Workers

Abstract

SUMMARY The psychiatric category of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is described and critiqued. Problems of definition and application may lead to the non-inclusion or minimization of some forms of post-traumatic distress. Questions of what constitute 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' reactions to trauma are raised and the depoliticization of trauma explored. The absence from the literature of sufficient acknowledgement of traumagenic actions on the part of official agencies is noted. The potential for critically informed social work interventions in prevention, mitigation and longer-term response is outlined. Despite what has been termed 'the rise of the post-traumatic stress disorders' (Jackson, 1991, p. 533), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received little critical attention. Among social workers, PTSD has escaped the scepti cism with which other psychiatric classifications have been received. Yet, in its environmental aetiology and in the usual application of a 'talking cure', PTSD seems congruent with social work received wisdom. Social workers are, for example, familiar with the idea of simultaneous risk and opportunity