Researchers describe P.A.S. as a womans's inability to:

• process the fear, anger, sadness, and guilt surrounding her abortion
• grieve the loss of her baby
• come to peace with God, herself, and others involved in the abortion decision

Listed below are the symptoms of PAS. These symptoms will not necessarily appear at the same time, nor is any woman likely to experience all of them. Some symptoms may appear immediately after an abortion, or some may appear years later.

• Guilt
• Anxiety
• Psychological "numbing"
• Depression: unexplained feelings of sadness
• Depression: sudden and uncontrollable crying episodes
• Depression: deterioration of self-concept
• Depression: sleep, appetite, and sexual disturbances
• Depression: disruption in interpersonal relationships
• Depression: thoughts of suicide
• Flashbacks of abortion experience
• Preoccupation with becoming pregnant again
• Anxiety over fertility and chilbearing issues
• Interruption of the bonding process with your children
• Survival guilt
• Eating disorders
• Alcohol and drug abuse
• Other self-punishing or self-degrading behaviours
• Brief reactive psychosis: a sudden display of psychotic behaviour that lasts up to two weeks
• Anniversary syndrome

Guilt is what the woman feels because she has violated her moral code. For the woman who has come to believe, at some point after the abortion, that she has consented to the killing of her preborn child, the burden of guilt is relentless.

Anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional and physical state of apprehension. Post-abortion women may experience any of the following:

• tension (inability to relax, irritability, and so forth)
• physical responses (dizziness, pounding heart, upset stomach, headaches)
• worry about the future
• difficulty concentrating
• disturbed sleep

When a person experiences anxiety because of an intense inner conflict, and there is no end in sight, the mind will take whatever course of action necessary to regain emotional equilibrium.

One such defense mechanism is repression, a sort of 'motivated forgetting' which simply pushes the unbearable emotions away from the conscious level of thinking.

Denial is a more thorough mechanism in which one not only pushes down unacceptable emotioins surrounding a painful event, but also part or all of the event itself.

A person who has experienced a highly painful loss will develop an instinct to guard against future situations which might bring that much pain again.

Many postabortal women may work hard to keep their emotions on a flat level, experiencing neither highs or lows. This greatly hampers their ability to form and maintain close interpersonal relationships.

While few postabortal women reach the point of an overt clinical depression, many will experience some of the following:

• sad mood
• sudden and uncontrollable crying episodes
• deterioration of self-concept
• sleep, appetite, and sexual disturbances
• reduced motivation
• disruption in interpersonal relationships
• thoughts of suicide

The most common experience that a postabortal woman reports is that she suddenly begins to have distressing, recurring 'flashbacks' of the abortion procedure, with no apparent explanation for what is causing them.

Recurring nightmares about babies are common.

A significant percentage of all women who have abortions become pregnant again within one year of their abortion.

This may represent an unconscious hope for a new pregnancy to become a replacement for the one that was aborted.

For the Christian woman, this is a particularly poignant issue, as they will verbalize these fears in terms of God punishing them.

After having an abortion, a woman might not allow herself to properly bond with future children because of a fear of loss. Or she may begin another pregnancy intending to be the 'world's most perfect mother'.

Likewise, a woman who already had children at the time of her abortion may discover that she is beginning to look at her existing children in a different light. She may have unconsciously 'devalued' them.

Some women who have had abortions feel guilty for being the 'survivor' of the abortion decision. It was either her life or the baby's life, and she chose to not interrupt her life.

These women may enter a heightened and unrealistic compensation mode, attempting to atone for her selfish choice.

Making herself unattractive serves as a form of self-punishment and helps the postabortal woman perpetuate the belief that she is unworthy of anyone's attentions.

A substantial weight gain or severe weight loss is associated with unattractiveness, which reduces the odds of becoming pregnant again.

Anorexia may become a form of control for the woman who feels her life is totally out of control. Also, an underweight condition can lead to the stopping of a woman's periods, which would also effectively prevent any future pregnancies.

Alcoholism and substance abuse often begin as a form of self-medication -- a way of coping with the mental pain of abortion memories.

Rarely, a postabortal woman will experience a brief psychotic episode for two weeks or less after her abortion.

The break with reality and recovery are both extremely rapid, and in most cases the person is completely back to normal when it is over.

It is quite possible for a person to have a brief psychotic reaction to a stressful event without being labeled a psychotic individual.

There tends to be an increase in many of the symptoms listed above around the time of the anniversary of the abortion and/or the due date of the aborted child.