PTSD Treatment (DIY)

[NOTE: This is a transcript of a video about post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Please excuse the conversational grammar.]

Most of my other discussions up until now have been about panic disorder, which is another type of anxiety disorder. PTSD is also classified as an anxiety disorder, but whereas with panic disorder you have an uncontrolled escalation of fear due to what might be imagined events, with PTSD the uncomfortable feelings are more closely affected to events in the past that actually happened. Perhaps an episode of violence or something where you felt a sense of helplessness, or responsibility and guilt, or victimized... Traumatized in some way.

The range of things that can lead to PTSD is really as varied as the people who experience it. What's traumatic for one person might not be for another, and vice versa. Its very individual. What matters here is that there was some external event that made a mental impression on you that's still causing you a significant amount of internal discomfort. Stress, anxiety, helplessness, fear, guilt. Some sort of mental or emotional overwhelm. Now the severity of PTSD can also have a very wide range of depth and complexity and severity, and I'm definitely not going to say that I understand what you're going through. And I also don't want to say that my approach will be right for everyone or every situation. I'm not a doctor and there may very well be some issues that are best explored with a mental health professional. So please don't take what as I say here as medical advice, but rather as my personal story that you can do what you want with. If it helps one person out there, it will be worth my time for making this video [transcript].

So what I've discovered in my own experience in overcoming anxiety disorder, and in the years since in helping many others, is that intellectually analyzing, making sense of or figuring out the source of emotional pain, as you might expect to do with a professional counselor, is often not actually what resolves the issue. But it might seem that way because naturally when you start sessions with a therapist they're going to explore the issues with you by using some sort of talk therapy -- getting you to describe the event and situation, how you felt then, how you feel now. So outwardly it might seem like they're interested in the event itself, but what's really therapeutic about the process is that they're leading you into a mental reenactment of the event in a safe environment that brings the feelings to the surface - so you can confront them and work with them in a healthy and safe manner, instead of continuing to suppress them, which really just perpetuates the emotional pain.

[Sidenote #1: I suggest renting the video "This Emotional Life" disc #2, available on Netflix. You'll see a similar approach being used to help a man successfully overcome PTSD without medication.]

[Sidenote #2: This might be kind of off topic, but this approach also reminds me of the TV show "Dog Whisperer" by Cesar Milan. On his show, and in his books as well, Milan often works with dogs that have been abused, or have experienced some sort of trauma - so they end up with severe phobias and anxieties related to that trauma. For example, there was one dog that had slipped on a shiny floor and fallen through a glass window, followed by his owner becoming hysterical. That dog subsequently became terrified about walking on shiny floors. There was also a stray dog that was extremely afraid of men - because it had been abused by a previous male owner. But obviously with a dog you can't go to therapy or talk them through it -- we don't speak the same language. But Cesar Milan's approach is almost always the same. What he does is he leads the dog (physically in this case) back into a similar situation, but in a safe and controlled manner... Kind of forcing the dog into and through their fears. And whatever situation they've been avoiding, they just go straight into it. He does this with the dog over and over and over again. And pretty soon the dog becomes desensitized to their own fear and eventually they just seem to realize that regardless of what happened in the past, its not part of their world now. They might be a little wiser and more cautious, but they no longer get panicky every time some little sight, sound, smell or circumstance reminds them of that past trauma.]

So I know we're not dogs, but I mention this because what human therapists do is really along the same lines, and it's amazing to see what kind of recoveries take place with dogs without the use of any language, talking or comforting at all. And what we're going to do is also along the same lines. However, the nice thing about being human, and not a dog, is that we don't need to physically go into a similar situation because we have the power of conscious visualization. And when we visualize a situation, or ourselves in a situation, our subconscious mind can't really distinguish between what's real and what's imagined. So visualization is really a perfect way to bring forth the feelings that you're struggling to cope with, and then you can work with them in safe environment. Eventually once you've desensitized yourself to those emotions (meaning facing them over and over in a controlled manner), they simply no longer overwhelm you. The event itself doesn't disappear (you can't rewrite the past), but the strong emotional memories tied to it just becomes part of your past... Not something that's still affecting and coloring your present moment.

But it is important that you face those sensations in the right way. And that's what we'll talk about now.

PTSD Therapy (Continued)