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Review
. 2023 Jun 19;13(6):331-339.
doi: 10.5498/wjp.v13.i6.331.

Psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma-related depression: A mini-review

Shi-Kai Wang  1 , Min Feng  1 , Yu Fang  1 , Liang Lv  1 , Gui-Lan Sun  1 , Sheng-Liang Yang  1 , Ping Guo  2 , Shan-Fei Cheng  1 , Min-Cai Qian  3 , Huan-Xin Chen  4
Affiliations
Review

Psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma-related depression: A mini-review

Shi-Kai Wang et al. World J Psychiatry. .

Abstract

There are various types of traumatic stimuli, such as catastrophic events like wars, natural calamities like earthquakes, and personal trauma from physical and psychological neglect or abuse and sexual abuse. Traumatic events can be divided into type I and type II trauma, and their impacts on individuals depend not only on the severity and duration of the traumas but also on individuals' self-evaluation of the traumatic events. Individual stress reactions to trauma include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex PTSD and trauma-related depression. Trauma-related depression is a reactive depression with unclear pathology, and depression occurring due to trauma in the childhood has gained increasing attention, because it has persisted for a long time and does not respond to conventional antidepressants but shows good or partial response to psychotherapy, which is similar to the pattern observed for PTSD. Because trauma-related depression is associated with high risk of suicide and is chronic with a propensity to relapse, it is necessary to explore its pathogenesis and therapeutic strategy.

Keywords: Antidepressant; Posttraumatic stress disorder; Psychological trauma; Psychotherapy; Reactive depression; Trauma-related depression.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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