TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR PTSD Ms. Carmelitano

Biomedical Treatment  Biomedical treatments are used when PTSD is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain  Antidepressants and Tranquilizers are typically perscribed  Valium and Xanax are popular tranquilizers  They help regulate the neurotransmitter: GABA which regulates anxiety levels inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, it sends a signal to other cells that subdues them.

Biomedical Treatment  Antidepressants: prescribed because many people with PTSD also suffer from depression  Marshall (1994)  Improvements in depression contribute to improvement in PTSD – regardless of how the PTSD is treated itself

Cognitive Treatment  CBT:  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy  CBT works with PSTD when the flashbacks are related to cognitive processing FOA (1986) Exposure therapy and psycho-education Give the patient information about PTSD and then expose the sufferer to the traumatic event by asking them to describe it over and over again The goal is to make the patient understand that the trauma is over, and it is safe to talk about it People suffering from PTSD try to avoid the reminders of the trauma, this will help them overcome this block

Foa Goals of Treating PTSD  1. Create a safe environment that shows that the trauma cannot hurt them  2. Show that remembering the trauma is not equivalent to experiencing it again.  3. Show that anxiety is alleviated over time  4. Acknowledge that experiencing PTSD symptoms does not lead to loss of control.

Keane 1992 – critic of CBT  Argues that patients may become initially worse in the initial stages of therapy.  Therapists may also become upset when hearing about the patients experiences

The Virtual Iraq  Albert Rizzo  Used virtual reality to allow soldiers to re-experience the horrors of war  Therapists can manipulate the variables making them relevant to each individual  Flooding  Over-exposure to stressful events  This is done to show the patient that stress-reactions will fade out due to habituation This tendency to have decreased responsiveness to something you are repeatedly exposed to Power of the cues that trigger the flashbacks will diminish

Traumatology  A field of psychology developed to help those suffering from a traumatic event  Crisis intervention is put in place with the goal of preventing PTSD  Psychologists will go to witnesses of a traumatic event, and begin the “healing” process right away  However the majority of people that experience a traumatic event never experience PTSD, so its usefulness is up for debate

Mayou et al (2000)  Argues that crisis intervention may do more harm than good  People are best served by the social support of their family when they experience a traumatic event  Strangers forcing a witness to immediately re-live the event may intrusive  It may cause them to lay more concrete memories (through creating a narrative)

Testimonial Psychotherapy  A means of helping patients overcome PTSD through deactivating the “networks of fear.”  It is based on the idea that collective traumatization is not as significant as individual traumatization  Meaning, when a person does not feel they have experienced the event alone, they are less likely to develop PTSD

Testimonial Psychotherapy  Participants are asked to make an oral history to collect, study, and disseminate the survivors memories  An oral history is a shared history that is recorded through speech rather than written down  This is meant to give meaning and purpose to the experience and the survivor (remember Stuker et al 1995)  This allows the survivor to give meaning to the event and to their survival

Weine (1998)  Procedure:  Participants: Bosnian refugees diagnosed with the PTSD symptom scale  Testimonials were conducted in Bosnian and translated into English and then back *back translation)  Victims of the Bosnian genocide worked together to discuss the events they witnessed, and the meaning it had to them as an individual and to them as a group  Findings:  The rate of PTSD decreased from 100% to 75% of the participants  After two months it had decreased to 70%  After 6 months it had decreased to 53%

Friedman and Schnurr (1996)  Aim: Analyze the role of group therapy in treating PTSD  Procedure:  Took a sample of 325 veterans of the Vietnam War and placed them into one of three groups: Psycho educational groups which taught: anger management, social anxiety management, conflict resolution Individual trauma-focused therapy which involved exposure to traumatic memories, cognitive restructuring and teaching coping skills Control group: did not engage in discussion about the trauma  Findings:  27% of those in the individual therapy reported relief from symptoms  17% of those in the group therapy reported relief from the symptoms  Both did better than those in the control