We Live in the Age of PTSD

Just as the ’60s were the Age of Anxiety, the ’70s the Age of Malaise, and the late ’80s and ’90s the Age of Depression, Charles Barber, visiting assistant professor of psychology, visiting writer, has diagnosed the current American generation with post-traumatic stress disorder. Beginning with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks up through the tragedies in Newtown and at the Boston Marathon within the past year, the last decade has been filled with traumatic experiences affecting each of us, to one degree or another. Writing in Salon, Barber explores the consequences of “the medicalization of trauma.”