Psychology Motivation, Emotion, and Social Behavior Concepts Practice Test

Intrusion symptoms after a traumatic event define this disorder. After experiencing or witnessing a traumatic incident, people may have persistent, unwanted memories and distressing dreams or nightmares about what happened, sometimes accompanied by flashbacks. These intrusive experiences are a hallmark feature and come with avoidance, negative changes in thinking or mood, and heightened arousal, all causing significant distress or impairment. For a diagnosis, these symptoms must persist for more than a month and markedly interfere with daily life.

The other conditions don’t fit this trauma-focused pattern. Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors not specifically tied to a traumatic event; generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by chronic, excessive worry across many domains rather than trauma-related re-experiencing; and dissociative amnesia concerns gaps in personal memory rather than recurring intrusive memories or nightmares about the trauma.