This page is broken into three parts:

1. General support for victims of trauma: Links to solid information and support sites.
2. PTSD recommendations: Great links on what it is, how to recognize it, etc. (I have spent ten years on the subject, and these are my recommendations for getting starting.)
3. PTSD primer: If you just need a 30-second summary or refresher, I've pasted in the intro from a true expert, Dr. Frank Ochberg.

General support for victims of trauma

• National Association of School Psychologists: "Coping After a Crisis"
• National Organization for Victim Assistance
  
• The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
• Reactions of Children and Adolescents to Trauma

PTSD Resources & Info

I recommend you start with the first one, by Dr. Frank Ochberg. He was on the team that first recognized the condition and created the diagnosis. He remains a leading expert on it. I met his covering Columbine and found his wisdom invaluable, along with an amazing ability to articulate who victims respond, and to explain complex neurological ideas in simple language to ordinary people outside the field. I've quote his intro in the last section.

(I eventually became an Ochberg fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University's Jouralism School. Frank founded it, and they do great work. I highly recommend their site as well, particularly to jounalists, or anyone interested in media coverage.)

• PTSD 101 by Dr. Frank Ochberg
  
• What is PTSD? National Institute of Mental Health
• PTSD Information Center, US Dept of Veterans Affairs
• PTSD.Support (UK)
  

 

PTSD Primer
By Dr. Frank Ochberg, from the introduction of his "PTSD 101" (linked above)

PTSD is three reactions at once, all caused by an event that terrifies, horrifies or renders one helpless. The triad of disabling responses is:

1. recurring intrusive recollections;
2. emotional numbing and constriction of life activity and,
3. a physiological shift in the fear threshold, affecting sleep, concentration, and sense of security.

By definition . . . this syndrome must last at least a month before PTSD can be diagnosed. Furthermore, a severe trauma must be evident and causally related to the cluster of symptoms. There are people who are fearful, withdrawn and plagued by episodes of vague, troubling sensations, but they cannot identify a specific traumatic precipitant. (Some clinicians assume this means abuse occurred and was repressed. The pattern of PTSD reactions thus may be used, illogically and erroneously, to "prove" a hidden trauma).

PTSD should only be diagnosed when an event of major dimension - a searing, stunning, haunting event - has clearly occurred and is relived, despite strenuous attempts to avoid the memory.

Recurring, intrusive recollections

The core feature of PTSD, distinguishing the condition from anxiety or depression, is the unavoidable echo of the event, often vivid, occasionally so real that it is called a flashback or hallucination. The survivor of a plane crash feels a falling sensation, re-visualizes the moment of impact, then fears going crazy because his or her mind and body return uncontrollably to that harrowing scene.

(This ends the section from Dr. Ochberg.)