On Clinical, Cultural and Theatrical Trauma

Abstract

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in its third edition in 1980. Since then it has been revised three times: in 1994, 2000, and 2013. This article analyses these changes through the lens of performance, with an emphasis on event, affect, liveness, spectatorship and temporality.

Notes

1 The American Psychiatric Association published the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders in 1952. Sixteen years later, in 1968, it published the second edition – the so-called DSM-II. The third edition, or DSM-III, appeared in 1980 and the DSM-IV in 1994. In 2000, the association published a Text Revision, referred to as the DSM-IV-TR. Most recently, in 2013, the organisation issued the DSM-5, switching from Roman to Arabic numerals and going online