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Psychopathology in Women pp 671–700Cite as

Gender Differences in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

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Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder began to be described in situations of war since Ancient Greece. For this reason the female gender was practically excluded for decades of this diagnosis by a gender issue. Epidemiological differences point to predominance of women over men; even with the highest prevalence of trauma in males, women would be more likely to develop this condition. It is possible that under these figures underlies an oversimplification of epidemiological studies that do not consider certain traumas or certain predispositions determined by the female gender role. In this chapter we aim to review the psychopathological differences that can be found in this syndrome by gender, based on the few studies that address the issue, as we have found before a scientific vacuum yet to be explored.

Gender violence is a major source of trauma, whether acute or chronic, occurring much more frequently in women than in men and that for many years has been silenced; that is why it has not been recorded or studied by experts as a focus of PTSD.

The way we channel and manage emotions is different in male and female, and these strategies that we use as we are men or women can determine the presence or absence of PTSD. The question is whether this is due to biological differences or to the assimilation of how to behave according to the expectations that society has invested in us according to our masculine or feminine gender.

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    Ana Villamor-García & Estibaliz Sáez de Adana

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Villamor-García, A., Sáez de Adana, E. (2019). Gender Differences in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In: Sáenz-Herrero, M. (eds) Psychopathology in Women. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15179-9_28

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