Re: ARTICLE: Fallout likely caused 15,000 deaths

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 3/7/02 4:12:10 PM Mountain Standard Time, jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov writes:



> While there were no deaths following the accident phase, people may have
>
> been traumatized by fear.  Post traumatic stress needs to be recognized as
>
> an illness and treated.


Here is a real question, especially for any medical doctors out there:


What differentiates fear from post-traumatic stress?  When does fear become "trauma?"  Some scary things I have done: mountain climbing, my Ph. D. oral prelim (don't laugh.  I was so scared I had real immediate physical symptoms), my first hip replacement, my daughter's eye surgery, sailing in a storm.  I was scared enough to be physically ill, but I certainly didn't suffer   POST-traumatic stress.  Soldiers on a battlefield cope with fear all the time, but all of them do not suffer post-traumatic stress.  Women in labor are frightened.  Anyone who has been mugged has known fear.


    

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com