Most studies which looked at the civil disturbances in Northern Ireland for the 25 years until the ceasefire declarations in late 1994 concluded that the impact on the psychological health of the population was insubstantial. In the study reported below doctors as a group were quite accurate in identifying the features of post traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D.) on a questionnaire but there is evidence to suggest that post traumatic neurosis has been under recognized in the clinical situation and, therefore, undertreated. Improving the accuracy with which doctors recognise psychiatric illness in general, and increased awareness of P.T.S.D. in particular, may well lead to increasing ability to diagnose the condition and thereby provide the individual with the opportunity for treatment.