The social perception of PTSD: the recognizability and the perceived controllability of certain symptoms

Abstract

The paper describes the results of a research undertaken on a sample of students from the University of Mostar (N=99) whose purpose was to establish the recognizability and perceived controllability of certain symptoms of die posltraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the effect of the information relating to diagnosed PTSD on recognising behaviour as PTSD symptoms and on perceiving its controllability. The analysis of the assembled data shows that the so-called reactions o f intrusion which are generally associated with a smaller possibility of control were dominant among die clearly recognizable symptoms. The label “ PTSD” does not significantly modify their recognizabilty but adds to the impression of controllability of some of these symptoms. The so-called denial avoidance reactions are less readily recognizable; there is a real possibilty that it is more difficult to recognitions their characteristics as defence mechanism so that their connection to die traumatic experience passes unnoticed. These differences in recognising and attributing might influence the social evaluation of individuals with PTSD with different symptomatologies.