Posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) from different perspectives: a transdisciplinary integrative approach.

BACKGROUND Psychotraumatization continues to be a pervasive aspect of life in the 21st century all over the world so we should better understand psychological trauma and PTSD for the sake of prevention and healing. METHOD We have made an overview of available literature on PTSD to identify explanatory models, hypotheses and theories. RESULTS In this paper we describe our transdisciplinary multiperspective integrative model of PTSD based on the seven perspective explanatory approach, on the fifth discipline, the art and practice of the learning organization as well as on the method of multiple working hypotheses.Trauma vulnerability, strengths, resilience and posttraumatic growth are key concepts that enable an integration of the distinct perspectives into a coherent transdisciplinary multiperspective explanatory and treatment model of PTSD. CONCLUSION PTSD is a complex highly disabling and suffering disorder where the past is always present in people haunted by the dread frozen in memory of the traumatic events. However, PTSD also represents an oportunity for psychological and spiritual growth due to the human ability to adapt and thrive despite experiencing adversity and tough times.