Dr. Ida Fonkoue

That's why that length of at least four weeks is important.

So I suppose if you come to a clinical psychologist soon after a traumatic event, they'll probably want to see you later.

And when they see you later, they can now reevaluate and see if you still meet the criteria.

for PTSD after this length of time has passed.

And now you can get the formal diagnosis.

There is a scale.

Call it an administered PTSD scale.

That's a good question you're asking.

Although we don't diagnose, we use a questionnaire called the PTSD checklist to be able to determine the severity.

And one thing that I know is that in the instruction, they particularly ask you about an event.

And I was trying to read the

read the the the instruction right now this is what and a great thing should have been to have that questionnaire right here with me and i know someone might bring it to me um it says please list the well this is for the this is for the severity so we mostly focus on the last three weeks for the severity but

It's not any type of stress.

I mean, being chronically stressed is not necessarily a traumatic event.

I want to really, because people talk about I'm stressed all the time, I'm stressed all the time.

No, it's not because you have a chronic stress that you necessarily will develop PTSD.

So I think let's start here by pointing out

what the instruction for this PTSD checklist says.

And the PTSD checklist is not used for diagnosis.

It's used to evaluate the severity of PTSD after the diagnosis was made.