PTSD Recovery
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – Recovery
The term PTSD is often heard these days in relation to many violent or terrible events.
Quite often, it happens to those veterans returning from wars or victims of traumatic events such as natural disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis.
It can affect victims in many ways.
Symptoms could involve random memories of the trigger event, violent nightmares, flashbacks, or fear and avoidance of certain situations that bring on bad recollections, anxiety, or depression.
Treatments can involve management by medication or targeted psychotherapy.
Success Rates: Apparently, approximately 6% of the population will suffer from a form of PTSD at some time.
Out of the treatments, 53% of sufferers receiving one out of three therapies will recover, and 42% will drive PTSD into remission by medication alone.
Types of Treatment:
Psychotherapy
Otherwise known as talk therapy, where professional mental health practitioners use various techniques to talk out and change those bad emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. They provide continuing support not only to the victims of PTSD but also to their families if they have also been affected. These sessions can be one-on-one or group therapy and last between 6 to 12 weeks or even longer.
Common types of treatments are: –
Exposure Therapy helps victims control their fears through gradual exposure to the cause. They may even write about the trauma or even visit the place where it happened. This form of controlled exposure helps reduce their distress.
Cognitive Restructuring can help sufferers make sense of the reasons for their distress. Quite often, they remember the trigger event in a different way. Sometimes, they feel guilty, even though it is not their fault. This form of therapy can restructure their memories of the cause in a more realistic way.
Medications: The type of drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration are known as Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, which are recognized anti-depressants. These may be prescribed alongside working with healthcare providers to balance the correct dosage.
3 Stages of Recovery from PTSD:
There are 3 distinct stages that aid people in recovering from PTSD.
A Feeling of Safety: The most important first step in recovery is to create a feeling of safety.
The psychologist or healthcare professional will create a sense of safety by helping the patient focus on taking control of their body and managing their emotions. They start within the body and mind and then work outwards to focus on environmental factors.
In this early stage, patients’ emotions and functions can fluctuate. Their doctor aims to help them focus on the basics, such as eating habits and sleeping patterns, taking care of themselves in terms of dress and cleanliness, and generally looking after themselves.
Since some people with PTSD self-harm as a way to ground themselves and cope with the trauma, this first stage proves to be the mainstay of the entire recovery process as clients learn ways of coping and maintaining this personal safety.
Remembrance or Mourning:
The second stage begins as the process goes on, and the client begins to trust the therapist. The patient talks openly about the traumatic experience. This is done very structured and safely only when the client is ready.
The therapist’s point is not to “re-live” the trauma or tell the story with no emotions attached. Using the tools learned to establish safety helps prevent the fight, flight or freeze response and allows exploration and mourning of the losses associated with the trauma.
Reconnecting With Self & Others:
In this final stage of recovering from PTSD, patients learn to reconnect and try to get back into relationships. Both with new people but also with a new sense of self and a new future. Survivors, by now, should be able to manage their emotions and symptoms, trust others, and seek social connections and friendships. This stage is not just about regaining lost parts of life, such as hobbies and social networks, but about joining these as a new person. As a survivor rather than the victim. From here, the trauma becomes integrated into the survivor’s life story but does not define them as a person.
Resources:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd
https://questpsychologyservices.co.uk/the-stages-of-recovering-from-ptsd/
