Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder fall into four categories: Intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in emotional reactions (mayoclinic). A person must have at least one or two symptoms from each of these categories, the symptoms must remain for more than a month, and must cause impairment in functioning in order for the person to be diagnosed with Post traumatic stress disorder (pg 146). Symptoms of intrusive memories include having recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event, flashbacks and dreams of the event, and severe emotional or physical responses to something that triggers memories of the event. Symptoms of avoidance are when the person tries to avoid thinking
