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Avoidance

What are avoidance symptoms in PTSD?

Avoidance is a core symptom of PTSD, with at least one avoidance symptom required for a diagnosis. People often try to cope with the trauma by avoiding distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings associated with the event. This may be effective in the short-term, but in the long term it may be associated with poorer outcomes.

What is the evidence for avoidance symptoms in people with PTSD?

Moderate to low quality evidence finds three clusters of avoidance symptoms. These are avoidance of thoughts and feelings, avoidance of activity, and avoidance of memory.

Avoidance of thoughts/feelings;

I tried not to talk about the trauma. I tried not to think of things that remind me of something bad that happened to me. I tried not to think about the trauma. I avoided thinking about or talking about a stressful experience from the past. I avoided thinking about or talking about the trauma.

Avoidance of activity;

I felt less connected to people after the trauma. I avoided situations because they reminded me of a stressful experience. I tried to avoid situations or people that reminded me of the trauma. I avoided situations that might remind me of something terrible that happened to me. I tried to avoid activities, people or places that remind me of the traumatic event. I avoided activities that reminded me of the trauma.

Avoidance of memory;

I stayed away from reminders of the trauma. I tried to forget about the bad things that happened to me. I had trouble remembering important parts of the stressful experience. I could not remember much about bad things that have happened to me. I had difficulty remembering. I had difficulty remembering some things that happened during the event/trauma.

August 2021

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Last updated at: 5:12 am, 15th October 2021
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