Ptsd In Macbeth

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Shakespeare seems to describe the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder in one of the characters. Post traumatic stress disorder, or also known as PTSD, is an emotional condition that sometimes follows a traumatic event (“post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”). William Shakespeare described symptoms of this in his character ,Macbeth, by him not being able to sleep, loss of intimacy with his wife, and by several of his outbursts of anger. This mental disorder has been misdiagnosed in people for many years and doctors are just beginning to understand how to diagnose and treat it. To help be more accurate with diagnosing PTSD, doctors had to look back at the history and why …show more content…
As explained by William Ira Bennett and Lisa A. Ennis, post traumatic stress disorder is a psychological condition. Dividing this psychological condition into two parts, how it affects a persons thinking and how it affects how a person acts, may help doctors understand this disorder better. Mentally a person may be more anxious and vigilant when suffering from PTSD (“post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”). Another thing that may be is that the victim may suffer from recurring flashbacks (Rosch 1), but they do also try to avoid memories that remind them of what happened (“post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”). Paul J. Rosch explained in an article of his that a person may act depressed or detached in some situations. Some victims also may have sudden outbursts of anger (Rosch 1) or feelings of numbness. Avoiding similar situations to a person’s trauma is common (“post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”). An example of this symptom may be that the victim may avoid going near certain places or being exposed to certain people. Symptoms of PTSD are common in other mental disorders and is also one of the easier disorders to fake, that is why it is difficult for doctors to be confident in correctly diagnosing patients with it (Rosch