Poll Is PTSD Preventable?

[Claire]

this is a really tricky one. I cant see how, if you are forced, it could prevent PTSD. I dont think everybody in society is ready for counselling and being forced to go isn't going to change that. They just wouldn't co-operate.

On the other hand I do think that if it was suggested and offered and became more normal to go to then it would be more socially acceptable to go to and therefore more beneficial. Its all about education. Isn't Australia more forward thinking with this kind of thing Anthony? I had an Australian physio treating me after my accident and he told me in Oz you would go to A&E and after physical exam you would be referred to some sort of trauma counsellor. Is this right? In the UK they give you a plaster (band aid) and tell you to take an aspirin!

 

[Deleted member 487]

Yes and no. What I think has been pointed out is that you can make people fence sitters by how you propose a question. Let em show you-

1. Do you believe PTSD is preventable offered counselling after trauma?
YES! Nearly 100% positive recovery.

2. Do you believe PTSD is preventable if forced into counselling after trauma?
NO! Because if you have to force it you are then placing the other person in another defensive role, and it likely will be destructive to the effort, thus making the PTSD worse.

 

[anthony]

CJ, your complicating the question though and deriving your own questions in order to justify an incorrect answer. The question is ONLY; Do you believe PTSD is preventable if forced into counselling after trauma? That is it, nothing more, nothing less. It is a yes or no answer, hence the way its structured. The question doesn't ask to be restructured in order to derive an opposite answer or to help people sit on the fence.

You answered the question as NO!

Even what your trying to say between "offered" and "forced" as variated differences, do you believe people would take the "offer" of counselling after trauma considering they don't understand or know about PTSD at that time, and are likely to only think they can work past it themselves?

There are a number of questions you could ask that would derive different answers depending upon the question itself, but none of them would relate as "the same" when it comes to this particular topic IMHO.

 

[Deleted member 487]

I disagree Anthony. You are correct- the question is Do you believe PTSD is preventable if forced into counselling after trauma? NO. Because if you "force" anything, it's involuntary. If it's involuntary, to me that's the same thing as brain washing. If the PTSD recipient is not willing to accept that they have PTSD, then it's a lost cause. If they accept it, but refuse the counseling, then is that their fault or the public's? Theirs, clearly. I see it as being dirty.

Go to work on a farm and don't shower. If you recognize you are dirty, do what you can to get clean. Bathe. Shower. Use a garden hose if need be (When I was younger I'd even take a bath in a cow pond). You recognize the problem, so fix it! If you see the problem, you see you have it, you see what it does to you, but you do nothing, who's to blame? But what will the public reaction be? Will women want to date me if I havn't bathed in two weeks, working on a farm? Hell no! Would I be welcome in school? Hell no! I'll be cast out until I am clean, but even then the reputation will follow.

That's why I have worked hard to rehabilitate myself. I'm the dirty cowboy, but no one will afford me the garden hose, or even a visit to a ditch. So I just gotta do what I can by myself.

 

[anthony]

CJ, that is a good way to look at PTSD, however; we are talking about counselling after the traumatic event, which is the time where a sufferer can be helped. If they are left to recognise a problem, it is often too late by that stage. Males and females are very different in this aspect also, in that females will go and discuss trauma with someone after the fact, they just might not get the correct feedback in order to remove blame or guilt from them, hence PTSD forms anyway. Males on the other hand are terrible at best of times for talking about their true emotions, hence whether forced or offerer, a male will more often than not reject help because they do not see the problem to begin with. You could tell a person after a traumatic event that they could get PTSD, and explain what PTSD is, but they will still ignore that advice and continue on their own because they cannot understand it until they have it, hence the very nature of PTSD. If you don't believe you will get it, or you don't believe you have a problem, then people won't get counselling. This is why the question is structured so specifically, to see what the general opinions are in relation to the short, sharp answers, yes or no, to the specific wording.

What people need is to be forced into counselling after trauma IMHO, at which point they must continue to be forced for atleast enough sessions until they get the message that they are their until such time as they begin to open up and talk about the trauma and their feelings. If a counsellor is happy with what they say, then no more needed; if not, more counselling until such time as the counsellor could signoff and say they have gotten it out of them.

Too late is not the answer basically.....

 

[anthony]

I don't think it would matter for males though either way.... because their genetic stubbornness and pride would sit it out and waste all the time in the world until released from therapy, then they kick themselves after the fact when PTSD takes over their lives a decade on.

 

[Marlene]

What people need is to be forced into counselling after trauma IMHO,

Anthony,

I understand your reasons for the above statement, but any program where a human being is forced to do something so intimate and personal would have a tremendous failure rate. I know if someone told me that I was going to be forced to go into therapy, my first reaction would be 'Make me!'. I think that's gonna be a pretty universal reaction. Or people would make something up just to get it done and over and no help is given.

That doesn't even take into account the legal and ethical considerations. Plus the basic human right to privacy.

Offering is good (as long as it's not some half-assed effort). But one of the thing that too many humans have fought for since time unremembered is their independence and freedom. You try to force someone to do something (especially if they don't want to)...you're going to have a big fight on your hands.

Just my opinion.
Lisa

 

[Deleted member 487]

Both of you are correct. As Anthony said, if the counseling is obtained early on, literally an ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure. And as Lisa said, if it's forced, it's already a failure. They have to be willing for it to work. Counseling is not like giving drugs. Give someone Prozac and it will do it's thing no matter how willing they are. But if you force the counseling, it's not the hard headedness that men have that builds a wall, but the common sense of "if they are going to force it on me I'll fight it!"

Like food. Let's say you hate cabbage. No matter how good it tastes, will you love it and appreciate it if you are forced to eat it? How would you be forced? Ball and chains? Incarceration? Just like with forced counseling. Unless you have them incarcerated 24-7 for the duration of the forced counseling, thre will be no progression. And when you incarcerate someone for counseling, that's brainwashing and very similar to the re-education camps the NVA had. "We will hold you prisoner until you learn that you agree with us even if you really don't, and even that is not a promise you will be free." What if they resist while incarcerated? Punish them? That only makes their belief that they don't need it even more real to them.

 

[anthony]

I believe soldiers need to be forced into counselling, or another word for it within the military, "ordered" to attend compulsary counselling with people who know when their being BS'd, people who know those that are just dishing out the "right" answers to get out of it quicker, etc etc.

The problem with not being forced into fixing this problem at the stage of prevention, is the cost for something that has no cure. PTSD is becoming a huge burden on many countries governments for compensation and benefits solely to do with the military, let alone all the civilian matters of MVA, rape, abuse, torture, etc etc etc... it is getting out of hand primarily because of the increased exposure all countries are now measuring from United Nations global conflict resolutions. The facts are, it can be prevented if gotten too early enough, or likely fixed whilst not a neurological imbalance, and IT IS the only way at present to lessen PTSD as a burden not only on all Western countries, but also the people who are suffering this illness to begin with.

If the word got out to soldiers/those who are looking to enlist, that if they deployed overseas there is a 50% chance of obtaining a non-curable mental illness that will hurt them, their families, the remainder of their lives beyond reproach.... well, we all know what would happen to enlistment rates, and it is already happening because retention is not possible due to the high numbers of mental illness on return from veterans alone, let alone those in the civilian sector now coming to the forefront of discovery and being recognised for disability due to the illness they now have from being raped two decades ago.

Countries will suffer IMHO, are suffering actually, and the only way I see at present because there is no cure for this, is that potential sufferers are forced into an area they don't want to be in order to hopefully lessen the rate of diagnosis.

I fully am aware the consequences of forcing someone to do something, however; when forced to do something and given enough scope and depth in order to achieve the end result, people will eventually come around, do what they have to do in order to be free of the forced issue to begin with. It is all mental, and mental swings both ways. People do not listen, people don't believe it will happen to them, and they are all wrong. PTSD is becoming a major issue, and you can see that solely from reading the news and simply looking at how many people are coming to places such as this forum, all diagnosed or trying to deal with someone diagnosed in their life, needing help after the fact, instead of fixing the issue before it developed into PTSD.

We are all going to be in more trouble than we know if this continues... uncontrolled PTSD is dangerous, and thats a fact.

 

[Deleted member 487]

Ah, now THAt changes things Anthony. In the US military it's called "psychological debriefing" as in many instances details can be lost in the stress of battle, and those can be details intel wants. They do it in a humane manner with the very thing your speaking about as the goal.

Unfortunately not all get it as the resources are quite limited. So it's pretty uch saved for those in extreme conditions, like USN-SEALs, SpecOps, SF, etc.

 

[Marlene]

Anthony,

I understand what you’re saying about ordering military that are returning back from a front line position to undergo counseling or a debriefing. Even police, EMTs and fire rescue have similar things when they’ve gone through something above and beyond the usual for their job.

But I ask this: What about those of us who have not been or no longer in the military? Do you want to use the same required counseling standards for us? Or to use myself as an example-my initial trauma happened when I was ten. I didn’t remember it for years. It wasn’t until almost 30 years after the event that the stresses in my life caused my symptoms to go out of control. Where do I fall in this plan? Yes, I am in therapy…by my choice because I want to heal. Others may not want therapy and choose medication instead. Or choose to ‘go it alone’.

Here’s how I see it. It all comes down to a choice of how you want to live your life, how badly you’re willing to work to heal and what quality of life you want for yourself. These are words that you have said again and again on this forum…that it’s a choice to heal. Well, if it’s a choice to heal (and do everything that goes along with it), then it’s also a choice not to.

Also, if made to take therapy, there is no guarantee that the person made to go will be the active participant required for help to be affective (too many people would expect the therapist and/or medication to solve all of their problems for them) AND do the hard work on their own that is required to have any degree of healing and learning to live with PTSD.

Forced therapy is a no-sum gained proposition unless you’re in a field that it can be required (i.e. military, police, etc.). When it comes to dealing with humans, there are too many variables to count.

I’m sorry, but what you’re proposing is reminiscent of eugenics. This was a program of forced sterilization of men and woman starting in the early part of the last century and was most popular through the end of WWII. It was so popular in fact, that the Nazi’s adopted the practice in the early 30’s. The people who were selected were ‘feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent’. I’m sure if they’d known about it at the time, PTSD would have been added to the list.

Forcing a person into therapy violates their right as human being to make their own decisions and choices. Couching it in the terms like ‘for the greater good’ is a tried and true way to open the door for abuses of people to start. When a plan starts with the idea of ‘Forcing someone to …’ the plan is dead wrong from the get-go.

Again…just my opinion.
Lisa

 

[Deleted member 487]

In essence if you have to force it they will fight it. If they don't fight it, then it's not forced. A wet vs. dry situation, if I may.
I feel if it's offered, peopeple will likely accept it. What you can "force" (though that's not a proper term) is to at least brief them on what they went through, how it can affect them, and then offer them resolution.

Boy, if I had any idea what I was going through and going to experience, I'd take such an offer up in a heart beat! I just want a good life. And right now, I'm living in my own hell.