Evolution and Posttraumatic Stress: Disorders of Vigilance and Defence

Chris Cantor

Taylor & Francis, 2005 - Psychology - 222 pages

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder remains one of the most contentious and poorly understood psychiatric disorders. Evolution and Posttraumatic Stress provides a valuable new perspective on its nature and causes.

This book is the first to examine PTSD from an evolutionary perspective. Beginning with a review of conventional theories, Chris Cantor provides a clear and succinct overview of the history, clinical features and epidemiology of PTSD before going on to introduce and integrate evolutionary theory. Subjects discussed include:

The evolution of human defensive behaviours

A clinical perspective of PTSD

Defence in overdrive: evolution, PTSD and parsimony

This original presentation of PTSD as a defensive strategy describes how the use of evolutionary theory provides a more coherent and successful model for diagnosis, greatly improving understanding of usually mystifying symptoms. It will be of great interest to psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, and anthropologists.

About the author

Chris Cantor is Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Evolution and Posttraumatic Stress: Disorders of Vigilance and Defence
• Author: Chris Cantor
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, 2005
• ISBN: 1583917713, 9781583917718
• Length: 222 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Evolutionary Psychology; Psychology / Mental Health; Psychology / Movements / Jungian; Psychology / Physiological Psychology; Psychology / Psychopathology / General; Psychology / Psychopathology / Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Psychology / Psychotherapy / General; Science / Life Sciences / Evolution; Science / Life Sciences / Genetics & Genomics; Science / Life Sciences / Zoology / General