02 January 2021 02 Jan 2021

It is 40 years since post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) received official recognition as a mental health condition in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1980). That recognition came about only through the efforts of a group of Vietnam veterans, who had fought to have the symptoms they were experiencing – flashbacks, anxiety, a sense of constantly being on alert – recognised as a medical condition..