The truth about dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder

The torrent of personal revelations that has poured from Prince Harry of late has been met with a range of reactions, from sympathy through to fury. But quite why he has pressed the nuclear button and blown up all before him, in such a public, uncompromising fashion, has remained a puzzle to some.

One possible explanation, suggested earlier this month by Philip Ingram, a former colonel in the British Army, is that Harry is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ingram pointed out in a newspaper article that what Harry went through in childhood – the loss of his mother in a car crash, amid overwhelming media interest – “would break many normal people”, and that his deployment to Afghanistan with the Army brought additional stresses (even if Harry claims military service “saved” him). Is it possible, then, that trauma lies behind his current behaviour, which from the outside appears more self-destructive than healing?

That soldiers can suffer PTSD after leaving the battlefield is by now well established. In the First World War, it was dubbed ‘shell shock’, and has since been recognised as a medical condition, a type of anxiety disorder. But it is one that can also be caused by any situation a person finds traumatic, from road accidents and sex attacks to domestic or child abuse, health problems and even childbirth. PTSD can result from grief, too, says psychotherapist Julia Samuel.

While in most cases, traumas are processed relatively quickly (in weeks rather than years), in a minority of cases, the trauma remains “locked in the brain, untouched and unresolved, as if it were in the present”, which can lead the sufferer to see the world differently, says Samuel, who was a close friend of Diana’s and is godmother to Prince William’s son Prince George, Harry’s nephew. “You can have it [trauma] on the brain decades after the event. It has no sense of time, it is present in the body. Trauma then heightens your sense of fear and response to the world: the world seems more dangerous.”

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Multiple studies have pointed to changes in the brain associated with PTSD. The condition is typically diagnosed by a psychiatrist via a mental health assessment, not a brain scan, but research shows the amygdala – the part of the brain that deals with emotional responses – is more active in those who suffer from it.

“The trauma is stored in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that’s always looking for threats,” says Samuel. “It can’t cognitively be processed.”

Symptoms of PTSD can include vivid flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, becoming easily upset or angry, extreme alertness, disturbed sleep, irritability and aggressive behaviour, poor concentration and, indeed, carrying out self-destructive or reckless acts, according to an extensive list from UK mental health charity Mind.