Abstract
To the Editor
Two years ago we identified two proverbs (Pridmore and Khan, 2011) which indicated that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had been known in Asia and the Arab world for perhaps centuries. Here we offer an undated example from Kenya, which has recently come to hand: ‘A man who has once been tossed by a buffalo, when he sees a black ox, thinks it’s another buffalo’.
While this statement does not specifically mention fear, as did the earlier examples, it does suggest ‘psychological distress at exposure to … external cues that … resemble an aspect of the traumatic event’ (APA, 2013: 271). Accordingly, this statement suggests that some criteria of what we call PTSD have been known on the African continent for many years.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.