Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Thank you to Hodge Jones & Allen civil solicitors for inviting our psychiatric expert witness to a present on Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as part of our lunch-time CPD series.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) has now been named as a disorder in the new International Classification of Disease Version-11.  Whilst CPTSD has been recognised by professionals for many years, this is the first time it will be described in any diagnostic classification system. CPTSD is seen as a sibling to the more commonly known Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  It presents with the same core features of PTSD (Intrusion, avoidance and sense of threat) with some additional features (affect regulation, negative self-concept and disturbances in relationships). 

CPTSD is different to PTSD in that it is associated with sustained, repeated, or multiple forms of traumatic exposure (for example, torture, slavery, genocide campaigns, prolonged domestic violence, repeated childhood sexual or physical abuse) rather than exposure to a single traumatic event. 

This will have implications in a number of legal cases where the claimant has been exposed to repetitive traumas. 

Some of the symptoms seen in CPTSD are also seen in other mental disorders therefore due to the symptom overlap, the diagnosis can missed.    

Our psychiatric expert witness is experienced in assessing patients who have been subjected to repetitive traumas and is able to assist in legal cases. 

Get in touch if you or your firm would like to book a lunch time CPD event: free one hour sessions delivered over lunch time, tailored to areas of mental health and law most relevant to you.  

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