Was Told By A Psychoanalytic That You Don´t Need "trauma Therapist" For Trauma

[Barconian]

I believe that cancer could cause PTSD! If someone close to us dies of cancer, if we are sensitive enough, we could develop a trauma based on our own fears of getting cancer ourselves per se'!!! I watched my father suffer with lung cancer when I was younger and it was gut wrenching, watching him die in so much pain and misery. Even though I still smoke and drink, I still had a realistic fear of developing that retched decease myself, especially now that my brother has lung cancer, my sister has breast cancer and my best friend has kidney cancer. I won't get PTSD from this because I am much more aware of the signs and am a lot stronger emotionally than many others.

I do feel for you Abby :(

And I get a feeling that, when anything comes down to insurance companies, money and how good a therapist is... All I see is greed from the rich and desperation from the poor. Insurance companies won't pay for quality professionals only cheap quacks, by the way I have been reading things.

 

[Abstract]

Sorry Abby as it seems I have upset you. I in no way meant to invalidate your experience or your feelings about this. I can imagine that seeing a parent suffering like and die would be devastating.

The reason I pointed it out was only because I think it is important for you to understand from which direction professionals will come from with this. I don't think diagnoses is the end all and be all because it is only a set of criteria decided on by a group of human beings but witnessing a natural death of a parent is excluded from the PTSD criteria now. They have taken out subjective descriptions of emotions.

Adjustment disorders can include a lot of things and including people who have been shot or raped or lost someone, that have been bullied, or had invasive surgery or had a relationship breakdown. If someone has every single symptom of PTSD but doesn't have an event that fits criterion a then they will still call it an adjustment disorder. If someone has a criterion a event and has every one of the symptoms of PTSD but not above a certain amount a week then they will also be diagnosed with an adjustment disorder. If they have some but not all the symptoms of PTSD then again it will be an adjustment disorder.

I thought about not saying anything but decided against it as it is obviously important for you to find the right person and to understand what they mean when they say what they say. If you were just going in to therapy then it would be different but you have read up on trauma and so I think you need to be speaking the same language as your more knowledgeable therapists.

Here is an excerpt from the latest diagnostic criteria:
Diagnostic Criteria for 309.81 (F43.10) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Note: The following criteria apply to adults, adolescents, and children older than 6 years. For children 6 years and younger, see corresponding criteria.
A. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways:

1. Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s),
2. Witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others,
3. Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. In cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent and accidental...

I only asked about flashbacks as I wanted to ascertain how strong the trauma response was to better guess at what may help you most. It was a genuine intention to help.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Not arguing about this case, but it's not just the response of the individual that determines PTSD. They must have a criterion A event in their life. So no, PTSD cannot be diagnosed for just anything as you'd have people who get it from common everyday events like getting dumped by their boyfriend.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Abby, after losing both parents and many friends to cancer, it wouldn't surprise me if it ends up someday being included. For now, the documentation says no, but you never know what it will say even 5 years from now.

I do hope you seek an assessment - in our state, the assessent costs nothing - to get an accurate diagnosis, whatever that may be. Whether PTSD, PTS, complicated mourning, adjustment disorder...those are ultimately just labels to plot an effective treatment plan.

For all the years I went undiagnosed, I wouldn't wish that loss of time on anyone. It's good to get that diagnosis so I am not complicating my recovery with inappropriate and/or unhelpful treatment modalities. We deserve the best treatment possible.

I'm sorry for all you've been through. May you find healing, friendship, and peace of mind.

 

[Abby]

Well, I don´t know, it seems like hair-splitting business to my mind.

From what I understood is, what the difference between a trauma and a difficult or painfull event (like "having your boyfriend dump you") is, is that the brain stores it differently. With trauma, the brain is overwhelmed and the trauma material is walled off prior complete processing. Unlike a painfull event, the memory material isn´t integrated and that´s what´s causing the difficulty and that´s what needs treatment.

Whatever they call it now or tomorrow... I think if one has all the symptoms of PTSD then that someone needs treatment for PTSD.

It´s like changing the diganostic criteria for a bone fracture and saying it´s only a fracture if it happened in an accident, otherwise they call it something else. It doesn´t matter how the bone broke, the fact is, that it is broken. If you have all the symptoms of a broken bone and the X-ray shows a fracture it doesn´t matter what you call it, you need treatment for a fracture, even if they don´t call it that from today on...

I think it´s quite confusing and I´m getting mixed information.

See online, the internet is filled with scientific studies and articles about PTSD in parents of children with cancer and living in an alcoholic household at least used to be considered a trigger for PTSD. Maybe they changed it, as you say.
Or it differs from where you live.

I looked it up and there are different criteria for PTSD considered by ICD-10 and DSM-IV 1996.

I found something interesting here:

Cloitre:
"There is some controversy, about what kinds of experiences can precipitate the development of PTSD. At present, a person has to have had a certain type of event occur in order to qualify for a PTSD diagnosis, and childhood adversities such as neglect or psychological abuse are not formally recognized as experiences that can cause PTSD. Still, we know that people who experience childhood adversity do get PTSD—so you can see that there’s something wrong with the existing definition of events that precipitate it.” The good news (for us) is that the DSM that comes out in 2013 will reflect a new diagnostic approach to PTSD which may focus exclusively on the symptoms and abandon the requirement that a certain events (and not others) cause PTSD. (The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.)"

Marylene Cloitre is a research scientist at the National Center for PTSD based in the Palo Alto VA and a Professor of Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the New York University Medical Center. She is the founding director of the Institute for Trauma and Stress at New York University’s Child Study)

Maybe they didn´t change it after all, or changed to to be even more specific..

I guess there´s always controversy with the diagnosis of psychological disorders .

E.g. I was in a clinic once that concentrated very much on eating disorders but also treated other patients together.
Even though I had normal weight and ate normally and didn´t mind eating their food, they said I still had an eating disorder because I didn´t want to know my weight.
But when after I went to a psychotherapist for eating disorders and told him my story he was convinced I never even HAD an eating disorder because I had dieted and lost weight for "professional reasons" (dancer).
The T I´m now with (also ed specialist) thinks I used to have an Ed, but don´t anymore, because I weigh normally and don´t have a problem with food/eating.

BloomInWinter, I think you´re right. These are all just labels. What´s important is that you get the right treatment.

 

[Hashi]

Which comes back to the question of getting appropriate treatment.

@Abby, how are you planning to approach this? I can't help feeling that after all the thinking and discussing, some action is needed.

 

[Barconian]

I looked it up and there are different criteria for PTSD considered by ICD-10 and DSM-IV 1996.

I am wondering how you can have a criteria for something you can't see! A criteria can't ascertain a personality, learned behaviour or circumstance, so how can DSM-IV or ICD-10 or what ever number the scientists decide, be able to determine a persons status? If Therapists had half a brain, they could work out the difference between genuine and bullshit, it isn't hard :(

 

[Lucycat]

I am wondering how you can have a criteria for something you can't see!

...and that Barconian is the crux of the entire debate on psychiatry and 'labels'. There is a school of thought that suggests all psychiatric/psychological diagnoses are BS and should be replaced with degrees of distress. Treat the distress - from whatever cause- and not the label. This leads to the proposal that if someone is even 'hearing voices' or some other psychiatric extreme that upsets others- does it need to be treated at all if the person experiencing this is not in the slightest bothered by it? I do find the discussion very interesting.

 

[Barconian]

@Lucycat Pretty much I do have the same thoughts as you... Degrees of distress!!! Once you cross the boundary from rational to e-rational too often, then your in trouble and need to learn where the balance between the 2 are again! And it aint easy on your own!

 

[anthony]

I was told today by a psychoanalytic that every therapist can treat trauma and there weren´t many trauma therapists. I find this confusing because it´s the opposite of what I´ve read and heard many times.

Yes and No. Yes, every therapist is trained to treat trauma. No, every therapist does not specialise in trauma, nor does being a therapist give a person unique skills and further education about the specifics of trauma itself, and how best to treat it outside of default teaching to get a qualification.

A trauma therapist is someone who specialises in trauma. They study it ongoing, they deal with as their primary focus in their field, they have a unique attitude that can take the information and relate it within effect to their client.

Qualification means little, you could really say. It's like a doctor. You see a GP who is an all-rounder in medicine and treats primarily common issues. When something is specific, they send you to a specialist doctor, who's focus is purely one field of medicine and they're an expert in it. They know it, and do it, better than a GP or other specialist.

That is a trauma therapist. They can all treat you, but the persons focus is purely trauma, thus they know it, and treat it, better than anyone else.

 

[Pietro]

Regarding diagnosis: psychology is problematic in this regard. Diagnosis of physical problems is often traceable to a specific cause. Symptoms help determine the cause, and then the cause is treated.

In psychology, however, we often can't identify a specific cause -- all you get is symptoms. That's why there's so much overlap in the various diagnoses, and why they're constantly rearranging them in the various diagnostics manuals. Thus, we're forced to treat symptoms and make guesses about cause. There's a lot more shooting in the dark here.

I think it's useful to have symptoms "profiles" because these can help determine a course of treatment. But assigning a person a label that says "you have x psych disorder" is foolish, because we have no idea what the actual disorder is, usually -- all we have are symptoms.

Even in the case of PTSD, where there is a single, significantly catastrophic event in the patient's history, you can still only guess that this is the cause of the PTSD symptoms. As many here have already said, it isn't clear what actually causes PTSD, and an event that might cause PTSD in one person may not in another. The PTSD symptoms could be more related to past childhood trauma, for example.

People like to pigeonhole things. Even people. :) But human beings aren't easily summed-up by 6 or 7 traits defined in a reference book. This is something that will likely take further evolution of societal maturity in order to get past.

 

[Hashi]

OK, one last try. @Abby what are you planning to do?

I know you've posted before and there have been discussons about trauma therapist versus non trauma therapist. Now this thread seems to have become a discussion about PTSD versus not PTSD.

All of which has many sides and is a good discussion.

But one year later, two years later... all you have is the discussion. Not a better therapy situation.

I would suggest that you need to do one of:

a Make the most of the therapy situation you currently have
b Find a better alternative within your country's free/subsidised system
c Find a better alternative that you pay for privately.

I think there's a risk of getting stuck in discussion when it would be good to take some action. I get the impression you've been stuck on this point for some time. I think you need to choose a direction and move forward with it.