I had an hour long session yesterday with my therapist. He has his finger on the pulse when it comes to PTSD, ten years worth of experience helping veterans. We talked about that wanker in the local paper saying people can be cured of PTSD.
Link Removed
That wanker Major Lane said we could be cured in a military paradigm.
This is my therapists explanation.
Hypothetically.
Lets say we had a veteran who has spend two years overseas, an infantry soldier who had been in Army for ten years with two years overseas on operations, and those years were at a FOB. Daily patrols, incoming mortar and rocket fire, rounds coming zipping past his ears. He has seen quite a few of his mates either wounded or killed. He has had to kill men, women, and children who have been armed and shooting at him. He has seen bits of bodies as a result of IED's.
How do you fix that.
First of all he would need a therapist or psychologist who he felt comfortable with, then the right type of therapy whether it be EMDR, CBT, etc, and the right medication to keep him in a calm enough state of mind.
Then he would have to talk through each and every incident, sometimes it could take multiple sessions just to cover one particular incident. Once he has talked through each incident enough times it would become a memory ( a horrible one), rather than something he thinks about every other day. Now he has to do that for each and every incident until he is desensitized to every single incident/trauma he has been through.
Then he has to be deprogrammed. This is the military paradigm. Every morning at dawn when his body clock wakes him, or in the middle of the night, a superior would be there to order him to go back to bed, do this enough times and he will be sleeping normal times.
Now lets tackle the hypervigilence. Take him among large crowds. When his anxiety creeps up and he starts looking for exits and patrolling for the enemy he would be spoken to by his superior and ordered to stand down. Do this enough times and he would be chilled when walking in large crowds.
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I hope you can see where I am going here.
1. There is not enough therapists out there to enable this to happen. It would take hundreds upon hundreds of sessions, and at the current rate we get appointments, it would take ten or more years.
2. There are not the facilities to desensitize a soldier.
Even after all that and lets say he has been deprogrammed and desensitized. He will still have a stress cup which is vulnerable. Too much stress and things will go pair shaped all over again.
Now don't get me wrong. I have had four years worth of therapy and I very rarely have nightmares or think about what happened over there. Yet on days of high stress I don't cope well. I still get angered very easily even though I have done two anger management courses.
Why
Because our brains have had a physiological change to it and that can't be changed back. Well I don't think it can.
You see it all the time. Veterans will get through their therapy and get on with life. They are doing well with their family and career, then way down the track, maybe 15 or 20 years something in their life changes and wham, they go off the rails.
The word CURE should be erased and the word MANAGE inserted.
Just my waffle.
Link Removed
That wanker Major Lane said we could be cured in a military paradigm.
This is my therapists explanation.
Hypothetically.
Lets say we had a veteran who has spend two years overseas, an infantry soldier who had been in Army for ten years with two years overseas on operations, and those years were at a FOB. Daily patrols, incoming mortar and rocket fire, rounds coming zipping past his ears. He has seen quite a few of his mates either wounded or killed. He has had to kill men, women, and children who have been armed and shooting at him. He has seen bits of bodies as a result of IED's.
How do you fix that.
First of all he would need a therapist or psychologist who he felt comfortable with, then the right type of therapy whether it be EMDR, CBT, etc, and the right medication to keep him in a calm enough state of mind.
Then he would have to talk through each and every incident, sometimes it could take multiple sessions just to cover one particular incident. Once he has talked through each incident enough times it would become a memory ( a horrible one), rather than something he thinks about every other day. Now he has to do that for each and every incident until he is desensitized to every single incident/trauma he has been through.
Then he has to be deprogrammed. This is the military paradigm. Every morning at dawn when his body clock wakes him, or in the middle of the night, a superior would be there to order him to go back to bed, do this enough times and he will be sleeping normal times.
Now lets tackle the hypervigilence. Take him among large crowds. When his anxiety creeps up and he starts looking for exits and patrolling for the enemy he would be spoken to by his superior and ordered to stand down. Do this enough times and he would be chilled when walking in large crowds.
..........................................................................................................................................................................
I hope you can see where I am going here.
1. There is not enough therapists out there to enable this to happen. It would take hundreds upon hundreds of sessions, and at the current rate we get appointments, it would take ten or more years.
2. There are not the facilities to desensitize a soldier.
Even after all that and lets say he has been deprogrammed and desensitized. He will still have a stress cup which is vulnerable. Too much stress and things will go pair shaped all over again.
Now don't get me wrong. I have had four years worth of therapy and I very rarely have nightmares or think about what happened over there. Yet on days of high stress I don't cope well. I still get angered very easily even though I have done two anger management courses.
Why
Because our brains have had a physiological change to it and that can't be changed back. Well I don't think it can.
You see it all the time. Veterans will get through their therapy and get on with life. They are doing well with their family and career, then way down the track, maybe 15 or 20 years something in their life changes and wham, they go off the rails.
The word CURE should be erased and the word MANAGE inserted.
Just my waffle.
