Staff Voices - Posttraumatic Stress - Is It a Disorder or Injury?
On Sunday, May 6, 2012, Greg Jaffe wrote an article in the Washington Post titled, Psychiatrists Seek New Name, and Less Stigma, for PTSD: Proposal Would Define PTSD as an Injury. This article sketches the current debate about whether the name posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) should be changed to posttraumatic stress injury—a change in which the word “disorder” would be replaced by “injury”. Infused partly by Army leadership, this call for change has stirred various questions including whether the name change would really reduce stigma and how it would impact the legitimacy of the condition in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and in health insurance and federal disability claims.
