slparker wrote:The positive response to stressful situations is termed eustress and is as well known in the psychological literature as PTSD. I think the modern catchcry for is resilience.
PTSD is an aberrant, but not unexpected, response to severely distressing stimuli, direct threat to safety or prolonged exposure to such stimuli. It isnt a new thing, the ancient greeks wrote about the horrific psychological consequences of battle. WW1 and WW2 saw similar rates of post combat psychological injury.
I've met many men who thought that PTSD was a failure of will, masculinity or a problem of gen Y. Many of those men subsequently learnt of their own psychological limits.
Of course PTSD isnt inevitable or automatic but nor is it predictable. Many calm, competent, experienced professionals get it. It seems that everyone has a finite resistance to stressful stimuli. I am not talking here about meeting sales targets I am talking about people under regular physical threat or just see to much violent death or injury.
Wasnt talking about eustress or short term postive stress so much. Being in warzones for example you don't experience much 'eustress'. What I was referring to is more the long term coping, learning and even character building from withstanding very difficult things long term. Doesn't negate the existence of PTSD but it seems public thought is all about the negatives with terms like 'trauma, stress, resilience'. Look at some of the comments , XYZ job= PTSD without question. So I am automatically mentally unwell from army and rescue service , thanks guys lol. They have to dial this back a bit, before every study proves 87.5% of people are unwell from 'stuff'