The Treatment Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

The first method of treatment is trauma-focused cognitive-behavioural therapy. In this method, a patient is gradually but carefully exposed to feelings, thoughts, and situations that trigger memories of the trauma. By identifying the thoughts that make the patient remember the traumatic event, thoughts that had been irrational or distorted are replaced with a balanced picture. Another productive method is family therapy since the family of the patient is also affected by PTSD. Family therapy is aimed at helping those close to the patient understand what he/she is going through. This understanding will help in the establishment of appropriate communication and ways of curbing problems resulting from the symptoms (Smith & Segal, 2011).

Posttraumatic stress disorder can occur after someone experiences a traumatic event. Once the mind hits the coping threshold, it is imperative to seek professional help. The VA offers evidence-based treatments, individual, group treatments, and medications. Coping mechanisms range from individual to individual, hence the need for a diverse PTSD program. Under the evidence-based treatment there are two sections: prolonged exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy. Prolonged exposure therapy is when someone continues to talk about their fears/trauma to gain control of feelings associated with those fears. The cognitive processing therapy is to understand the feelings associated with trauma and finding a way to replace negative feelings with positive

Long Term Treatment goals: Lower the negative effect that the traumatic event has had, and return to pre-trauma level of functioning.Recall the traumatic event without becoming overtaken with negative emotions.Stop destructive behaviors that serve to maintain escape and denial, and implement behaviors that promote healing, acceptance of the past events, and responsible

Treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder is possible. The current treatment of PTSD encompasses several types of psychotherapy combined with a medication regimen. Cognitive therapy is one type of therapy used to combat PTSD. The goal of cognitive therapy is to allow the patient to slowly experience feelings, thoughts, and events associated with the trauma in a controlled setting. This allows the PTSD sufferer, to categorize the traumatic feelings associated with the event and assign a more positive meaning to them. Thus providing a coping mechanism. Another school of thought places the therapeutic focus on gradually exposing the PTSD sufferer to elements of the trauma. The goal is to desensitize the patient to the traumatic event. This allows the patient to resume a normal life. One other form of therapy used in treatment of PTSD is EMDR. EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a form of exposure therapy that places the emphasis on guided eye movements. The theory is that the movements help retrain how the brain reacts to memories of the traumatic event. Success has

Despite, all this benefit of using CPT in trauma treatments there are also limitation when using this method for a counsellor/therapist should be aware of. Notwithstanding, the impact CPT has in reducing erroneous thought with PTSD (Sobel, et al., 2009), still recommended for the need more in-depth further studies in understanding the cognitive process in recovery from PTSD. More so, research has to be done or studies that have proven to be successful in using this treatment should be replicated to determine the effectiveness of CPT with different population (Resick et al., 2002). CPT believes that homework and other written work is very vital with this treatment approach, and this could pose as a challenge for clients who might have difficulty

There are two common types of treatment, which include psychotherapy and medication (“PTSD: National Center for PTSD”). Cognitive behavioral therapy is known to be the most effective treatment for this disease. The treatment may include learning skills to understand how the traumatic event changed the individual's thoughts and feelings. This type of psychotherapy therapy may also include repeating of the memories and discussing the event in thorough detail until this event no longer causes the individual to feel distressed in a situation that is similar. These treatments help to change how one feels about the situation and themselves (“PTSD: National Center for PTSD”).

The symptoms that are being treated through this individualized treatment plan related to post traumatic stress disorder are: dissociative reactions, irritable and aggressive behavior, concentration problems, and trauma-related external reminders. The first goal is in place to assist Precious in learning to eliminate intrusive memories, a “notable feature of memory in PTSD is the reliving experiences or “flashbacks” to the trauma” (Berwin, 2003, p. 340), and addressing causes of these memories through the intervention of prolonged exposure. In addition, the second goal that is being implemented, preventing and addressing distortions, is being addressed through prolonged exposure. This technique is “a general treatment strategy for reducing anxiety that involves confronting situations, activities, thoughts, and memories that are feared and avoided even though they are not inherently harmful.” (Foa, 1998, p. 65). The flashbacks and distortions that Precious experiences are being addressed through prolonged exposure, due the fact that it

EMDR therapy, EMDR uses an eight-phase approach, referring to the past, present, and future aspects of the traumatic experience, and dysfunctional stress stored memories. The first Phase calls History and Treatment Planning. In this phase the therapist listens the patient's history and develops a treatment plan. In Phase II, the preparation, the therapist teaches the patient how to calm down him/herself with the help of relaxation techniques. The phase III is Assessment in which the therapist asks the patient to visualize the image of the disturbing event, then asks him/her to develop a positive cognition associating with that image. In Phase IV, Desensitization, the patient  focuses on the disturbing memories during short sessions of 15-30 seconds. At the same time, he/she also focuses on the alternative stimulation such as directed eye movements, slapping hands, or voices. This process repeats  many times until the patient's reaction to the target memory becomes less distressed. In Phase V, Installation, the therapist again with the use of bilateral stimulation asks the patient to remember the event about which the positive cognition is developed in the phase III, and makes sure that

This theory proposes that a traumatic event produces maladaptive assumptions and beliefs about the world, other people, and the self that interfere with recovery (Schultz, Barnes-Proby, Chandra, Jaycox, Maher, & Pecora, 2012). CBITS uses cognitive-behavioral techniques (for example, psychoeducation, relaxation, social problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and exposure). Cognitive-behavioral therapies work to teach people skills to combat these underlying issues, including correction of maladaptive assumptions, processing the traumatic experience instead of avoiding it, learning new ways to reduce anxiety and solve problems, building peer and parent support, and building confidence to confront stress in the future (Schultz, et al.,

This method is useful in trauma cases, which result to depression, anger and anxiety. It includes strategies and methods used to help individuals deal with past traumatic events in order to minimize anger and depression. Making an individual remember their past traumatic events enables them deal with their fears (Rizvi, Vogt, & Resick, 2009). The treatment period is dependent on the needs of a client and the healing progress. Edna. B. Foa is the scholar who developed the therapy program she based her study on the treatment of anxiety. Practitioners all over the United States have practiced her strategy on treating trauma caused due to rape, child abuse, motor

The two types of psychotherapy treatments are exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring. Exposure therapy “helps people face and control their fear. It gradually exposes them to the trauma they experienced in a safe way.” Cognitive restructuring “helps people make sense of the bad memories. Sometimes people remember the event differently than how it happened.”

If veterans do struggle with PTSD after they return from combat the Department of Veterans Affairs, a governmental agency that helps struggling veterans recover, offers two treatments. Studies have been done to see if one of the therapies is more effective than the other. There is not yet evidence that one therapy is better than the other. Cognitive processing therapy, CPT, helps by giving the vet a new way to deal with the maladaptive thoughts that come with PTSD. It also comforts them in gaining a new understanding of the traumatic events that happened to them. One of the other benefits of CPT is that it assists the person in learning how these disturbing events change the way they look at everything in life and helps them cope with that (“PTSD: National”). The second newer option of the two is prolonged exposure therapy, which is repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations (“Most PTSD”). This type of therapy is now a central piece in the VA’s war on PTSD. “The problem with prolonged exposure is that it also has made a number of veterans violent, suicidal, and depressed, and it has a dropout rate that some researchers put at more than 50 percent, the highest dropout rate of any PTSD therapy that has been widely studied so far,”(“Trauma Post”). Both of the therapies are proven to reduce the symptoms but both have extremely high drop out rates and low follow through. It

It involves cognitive, writing, and reading exercises that are needed in order for the victim to recall the sexual assault. This type of therapy is a manualized practice. Therefore, similar results will happen despite the different therapists using it. The first session involves, a general review of what PTSD and cognitive therapy is and does to a person. Their first written assignment is given and focuses on the overall impact that the traumatic experience had in their lives. In the second session, the therapist and victim strive to define and discuss the meaning of damage and how certain events in one’s life can strongly associate with one’s emotions and thoughts. Thirdly, a writing assignment that has to deal with a detailed description about the event, the victim’s emotions, and thoughts is introduced. In addition, once they are done writing it, they are required to read it back to themselves. In the fourth and fifth session, the therapists begins to add the cognitive therapy by asking the victims to read them the assignment out loud. They begin to question the victims’ thoughts about their own self-blame and unwanted

The Healthy Minds Through Therapy Project is a research project that will address the issues that are related to one form of psychiatric illness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which manifests during or after combat experience. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), there has been a rise in veterans with PSTD. PSTD is a serious public health concern, which compels the search for a design that will explain the entire situation or behavior, with the idea that it would eventually be a foreseeable and curable behavior. The research will deepen the comprehension of the condition and develop new and improved treatments. One form of treatment being used for PSTD is psychotherapy, with the specific treatment being known as Cognitive Behavioral

This treatment approach is based on cognitive and learning theories, tackling-misleading beliefs related to the traumatic events of acknowledgments related to the abuse and provides a supportive environment of which individuals are encouraged to talk about their traumatic experience. A numerous amount of research has been carried out to investigate into how effective CBT really can be for PTSD. (Resick et al, 2002) carried out an investigation comparing CBT with strong cognitive restructuring focus and CBT with a strong exposure focus and to a waiting-list control of rape survivors. Prior to this experiment approximately 80% of patients who completed either form of CBT no longer met the criteria for PTSD. Once this investigation was complete a follow up treatment took place of which it was noted 2% of the waiting list group had lost the PTSD diagnoses. Only a year after this investigation Bryant, Moulds, Guthrie, Dang & Nixon, (2003) restructured the experiment comparing exposure alone, exposure plus cognitive restructuring, and supportive counselling in civilians with PTSD resulting from various traumatic events. At this particular follow up 65-80% of participants who either completed either form of CBT were now clear of PTSD diagnosis, compared to less than 40% of those who completed supportive counselling.