Post-traumatic embitterment disorder

Post-traumatic embitterment disorder, abbreviated PTED, is a proposed pathological response to a single adverse life event that the affected person perceives as a serious insult, humiliation or injustice. The dominant emotions are persistent embitterment, anger and hatred, often with intrusive memories of the event and fantasies of revenge, and unlike ordinary adjustment disorders it typically becomes chronic. It was proposed as a separate disorder by the German psychiatrist and psychologist Michael Linden in 2003. The Wikipedia lead stresses that it is not recognized as a distinct disorder in ICD-11 or DSM-5, where it may be classified as an adjustment disorder, and that its validity as a diagnosis remains disputed. This entry records that dispute and is not medical advice.