Abstract
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) disrupts the functioning of those afflicted by it, interfering with the ability to meet their daily needs and perform the most basic tasks. Trauma continues to intrude on the lives of people with PTSD as they relive the life-threatening experiences they have suffered with visual, auditory and/or somatic reality reacting in mind and body as though such events were still occurring. Not everyone experiencing traumatic events develops PTSD; it is a complex psychobiological condition that can emerge in the wake of life-threatening experiences when normal psychological and somatic stress responses to a traumatic event are not resolved and released. In this paper it is proposed that Autonomic Nervous System hyperarousal is at the core of PTSD and the driving force behind phenomena such as dissociation, freezing and flashbacks. Acute traumatic reactions are differentiated from PTSD and strategies for intervention are suggested.