Traumatic Stress Disorder
is not a phenomenon that is new or unique to South Africa. Though
the diagnosis of PTSD was only officially introduced to the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and adopted by the American
Psychiatric Association in 1980, the condition has been around for
years under different names. In the American Civil War it was called
"soldier's heart" or "melancholia," in World
War I it was "shell shock" and in World War II it was
called "combat neurosis." These labels were attached to
soldiers returning home from combat, especially ones who saw catastrophic
violence, who were withdrawn and depressed, and apt to leap for
cover at the sound of a slammed door. Today the diagnosis of PTSD
includes the after-effects of stressful events other than war, like
rape and violent crime.
National Center for PTSD estimates that 7.8 percent of adult Americans
suffer from PTSD. For American veterans of the Vietnam War, those
numbers are far higher - 31 percent. And in a recent review published
in the PTSD Research Quarterly, researchers who reviewed
55 studies on children and PTSD found that children exposed to chronic
community violence experience the disorder at a rate of 25 percent.
1997, the World Health Organization issued a study on the Global
Burden of Disease, and found that mental disorders are second in
burden only to infectious diseases. The most obvious consequences
of mental disorders like PTSD are the cost in terms of human productivity
and quality of life. Of the roughly 100,000 Vietnam veterans diagnosed
with the disorder, 33 percent are alcoholic. Many are unable to
work, and are only able to receive disability payments if they can
"prove" the severity of their PTSD.
there have been few epidemiological studies of trauma disorders
in South Africa, existing research suggests South Africans, especially
blacks struggling to make sense of the tragic tapestry of their
country's past, may be suffering from the disorder in numbers far
greater than average. In a 1997 study of 3,870 adults conducted
by Market Research Africa and the Community Agency for Social Equality,
17 percent of people who had been exposed to trauma described their
mental health as "poor", versus 2 percent of people who
had not been exposed to trauma. Of the 23 percent of people exposed
to violent events, 78 percent had one or more symptoms of PTSD.
The study was conducted with face-to-face interviews.
Simpson, a psychologist at the National Center for Psychosocial
and Traumatic Stress in Pretoria, South Africa's capital, says PTSD
isn't an accidental by-product of apartheid, particularly in the
case of political prisoners. At a Mental Health Workshop held in
November 1997, he said torturers deliberately traumatized their
your cohesive and abusive interrogation (didn't) force somebody
to tell you what you wanted to know, at least you could return them
to the community...sitting shivering in the corner and awake with
nightmares all night and no darn use to further the cause that he
or she had been fighting for," he said.
point out that while many people who lived through apartheid suffer
from few if any symptoms today, there are others who are still so
undone by yesterday's atrocities they are unable to work or have
meaningful personal relationships. They suffer from nightmares,
racing hearts, and frightening flashbacks. Their short-term memory
is damaged, and their mood swings are severe. Some have turned to
alcohol (South Africa has one of the highest rates of alcoholism
in the world, according to a Health Department report released last
year) and drugs to medicate themselves, some have embraced violence.