Is a person merely a complex physical organism capable of mental processes?
Or is one a spiritual being more appropriately identified as non-physical consciousness?

Is PTSD, as the medical community seems to be saying, a vague collection of haphazard psychological symptoms with no cure?
Or is it a very real spiritual problem that can be resolved at the spiritual level?

The Humanist Orientation: Genes, Brains and Chemistry

The more well-known perspective is that of humanist medicine. By humanist medicine, we mean a medical or psychiatric approach that is oriented only to the body. This approach views consciousness as a symptom of the brain, and all mental illness and psychological discomfort as having a physical cause. Humanist medicine looks almost exclusively at brain chemistry, genetic information, and observed behavioral manifestations in its search for the causes of psychological problems.

The National Institutes of Health Definition
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) noun: a psychological reaction that occurs after experiencing a highly stressing event (as wartime combat, physical violence, or a natural disaster) outside the range of normal human experience and that is usually characterized by depression, anxiety, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and avoidance of reminders of the event; called also delayed-stress disorder, delayed-stress syndrome, post-traumatic stress syndrome; compare 'combat fatigue'.

The humanist approach, oriented as it is to the incredibly complex structures of the brain and DNA, is largely dependent upon unproven theories and intricate experimentation with adjusting the victim's physical and emotional aspects in its quest for a cure. Presently, and into the foreseeable future, this approach does not have a cure for so-called mental illnesses or disorders. In the interim, with no proven idea as to the causes of such things, psychological and medical practitioners have been limited to palliatives: interim or substitute treatments which serve to relieve, lessen or alleviate without curing.

Unfortunately, to date the humanist approach has resulted only in palliatives, usually in the form of environmental adjustments, conversation, and drugs. (A palliative is intended only to lessen symptoms rather than to cure or terminate the problem.)

The Spiritual Orientation: Consciousness and Self-definition

The second is the spiritual perspective. We view a person as a spiritual being who possesses, or maybe even is, an independent consciousness that transcends mere self-awareness. And we look primarily to the discernable functions of that consciousness to understand what is going on in an individual's life. We find that sometimes the person makes the mistake of adapting to sudden, unhappy or disorienting events rather than simply experiencing them and moving on.

An alternative Spiritual Definition
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) noun: (more accurately, Stress Affect Disruption (SAD)) a behavioral shift that manifests after experiencing a highly stressing event (as wartime combat, physical violence, or a natural disaster) outside the range of expected experience, etc., resulting from the misapplication of a majority of the consciousness functions that determine personal identity and behavior.

• humanist medicine believes that psychological distress is caused by disruptions or defects in the physical body;
  
  
• the spiritual view is that disruptions and defects in the physical body are caused by misdirected spiritual expectations.

Next we might review their definitions.

• The NIH humanist medicine definition is not a definition at all. It does not speak so much to causation as it merely describes after-effects. But then, that is what a disorder or syndrome is: a list of associated unhappy symptoms and a description of common circumstances, but no explanation as to how any of it happens. Still, these are offered as medical diagnoses for which counseling is offered and drugs are prescribed. This is shooting into the dark; it is not unreasonable to question the wisdom of that.
  
  
• Our spiritual definition declares a specific causal mechanism that precisely defines PTSD in a concise manner. It also states why PTSD happens and indicates a successful path to a cure: Stress Affect Resolution.