Certain features of a trauma are more likely to give rise to psychiatric symptoms and problems of adjustment.  These include:

• sudden and unexpected events.
• incidents in which there are many deaths and serious or mutilating injuries.
• where the individuals believe there was a genuine risk to their lives (even if in reality the risk were quite low).
• where the individual suffers prolonged exposure to the trauma (by, for example, being trapped in a vehicle, being held hostage or for some other reason being unable to escape the scene of the trauma).

Hostage Taking