[From stress to post traumatic stress disorder]

Beside the major events like catastrophe, the psychological consequences of a traumatic confrontation can represent for the subject multiple clinical forms, even in events likely to be regarded as usual. After immediate stress often spectacular and sometimes maladjusted, subject is able in the short or the long term to develop a whole of symptoms often invalidating. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represents a specific condition known to be frequent and disabling as well in general population as in exposed populations. Nevertheless, PTSD is an anxious disorder which etiology, development, clinical recognition and dimensioning are well controlled and for which the strategies of care are relatively consensual.