Effective Techniques for PTSD Treatments - Part 1 by Jay Bose

Emotions are a gift of nature to us - they keep us human. Feelings of joy and sorrow are all natural reactions to situations in life. Interestingly enough, the same situation in life could be interpreted as joy for one person and sorrow for another. It depends on how we perceive as individuals perceive life. Two boxers knocking the living daylights out of each other in the ring obviously could not be considered as having a joyful time and yet the crowd might be thoroughly enjoying the exchange of blows. The good thing about emotions is that they are more temporary in nature - over time images of the situation could fade away from memory. However some emotions are so strong that they seem to remain indelible in our memory. Memories of such longer lasting emotions based on situations that are negative in nature and those that lead to extreme psychological stress when the conscious mind plays them back, are often classified as psychological trauma.
What's On Your Mind?
Psychological trauma could be as recent as an experience in adulthood or something as distant as early childhood. However that experience is so severe that anytime the mind wanders over to replay that experience from memory, it literally consumes you in sheer grief.
Children growing up in unhealthy, depressing conditions or in families that indulge in domestic violence or abusive behavior turn out to be prime candidates for developing post traumatic stress disorders pretty early in life. The trauma of childhood manifests itself in the person's character, thought process and behavior patterns. I've known women who have developed gamophobia (fear of marriage) because they came from broken homes and had witnessed bitterness in relationships between the birth parents. Those memories became the source for trauma and manifested themselves as a phobia for the woman, which in turn shaped her character and attitude towards men.
In the recent past there was an uproar in the community and news media about a video being published in Youtube® where a toddler was being taught how to smoke pot in his own home. I won't give you any credits for guessing how traumatic that experience could have been for the toddler, when every rational and mature person viewing it were disturbed by the graphic scenes. Where do you think the toddler will end up in life? All we can do is wish him luck.
Abusive supervisors at work could lead to psychological trauma for employees and literally destroy their confidence to perform or even go back to work. Sexual abuse is a common cause for women developing psychological trauma .Recent news about the polygamist who literally controlled the lives of several women disturbed viewers. Can you imagine the trauma that those women and their children went through and will carry on for the rest of their mortal life?
The worst part about traumatic experiences is that they are long lasting in memory and affects the future life - hence the term post traumatic stress disorder. In other words the events of a few moments manifest themselves as trauma for months and even years to come, leading to incessant feelings of anxiety, phobias, depression and even panic attacks. These lead to inhibitions, which in turn makes PTSD treatments a challenge to be effective let alone make any progress with the patient on stress and anxiety reduction.
In the example of the women with gamophobia, the post traumatic stress disorder could manifest itself as unreasonable hatred and distrust for men, jealousy for happy couples, depression, homosexuality and even alcoholism and drug abuse. So much so that such women may not feel comfortable to discuss the problem with a male psychotherapist.
Marines coming back from the war are prime candidates for post traumatic stress disorders. It does not matter how well you can train them, the gory scenes of war in real life and in real time can break the toughest of minds. It is one thing watching a video and an entirely different thing participating in the action. When we civilians watch news media coverage on television, we tend to ignore the events, but those brave soldiers that keep us safe at home don't have that luxury of ignoring reality. Pause for a moment to imagine how stressful and how traumatic it can be to see your brother or your sister or your close friends' life suddenly get extinguished in battle. The marines go through this stress and carry these traumas every day of their life. When they return the shock of their experiences could make them develop post traumatic stress disorder. Sole survivors of attacks where everybody in his unit lost their lives except himself often wonder what it was that spared his life. That is even more traumatic.
Challenges in PTSD Treatments
There is no shortage of examples of traumatic experiences and every situation is different. However the core theme for all cases psychological trauma is inhibitive behavior, anxiety and panic if the patient is even proposed with the idea of being exposed to a similar event even in virtual re-enactment mode. However the key to an effective treatment lies exactly in the patient willing to open up and share the experience with a qualified mental health professional. This becomes a major challenge for the psychotherapist to suggest any effective remedies for patients with post traumatic stress disorders.

In the next article I will discuss some of the more effective techniques for PTSD treatments.
Jay Bose writes and offers coaching to students online on stress and anxiety reduction, http://www.StressAndAnxietyFree.com/ PTSD treatments, and other mental ailments. PTSD treatments are often a challenge due to inherent inhibitions of the patient to discuss the stimulus of trauma. Post traumatic stress disorders can have a permanent impact on a person's character, outlook towards life and general behavior.

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Another Memorial Day Tear Jerker by Pat Kiggins

This is my fourth year of publishing an article on Memorial Day. I'm always surprised by the reaction that I receive each time I write one of these. I've received emails from total strangers saying how they can relate to the context of my article or how my article gave a person the courage to speak to their parent about the parent's war experiences.
Today, I started my Memorial Day like every other one in recent memory. I went outside and sat under the tree in my front yard just to have some time to myself to reflect on the meaning of the day. I search my memory to honor the men that I watched die. I always take time to pray for all those who have given their life for our country. Personally, I've only witnessed the deaths of a couple of handfuls of soldiers but I always remember to be true to the meaning of the day and pray for everyone who has given their lives.

Then, I began thinking about the reactions of various people that I met this weekend. Usually, this is a relatively quiet weekend for me but not this year. You see, I attended the World Internet Summit in Dallas from Thursday through Sunday. There were hundreds of people there trying to learn how to make money on the Internet.

I took the advice of some Veteran organizations and wore one of my Purple Hearts each day. The purpose of wearing your medals in public is to remind people that this is a weekend to honor our fallen soldiers rather than to focus on sales at the local mall. The reactions I received were varied and confusing.

Some people came up to me and simply shook my hand and thanked me for my service. Others came up and asked me what the medal was and why was I wearing it everyday. There were people from other countries who had no clue what a Purple Heart was. One lady told me that I was a "political activist" and that I shouldn't be trying to inject politics into an Internet training event.

On the night of the "networking" event, I had lots of people who wanted to talk about my military experiences rather than follow the agenda (which was to find other people who could help you in your online business).

Probably the most touching part of the event was at the end when people were taking pictures with other attendees. People kept coming up to me and asking me if I would have my picture taken with them. Most were other veterans or simply people who found it refreshing that someone would take the time to wear a medal just to remind them what the weekend was all about. I think as many people thanked me for reminding them of the sentiment as thanked me for my service. That actually blew me away.

You have to remember that I am a Viet Nam veteran and we aren't used to people thanking us for our service. In fact, most of us weren't greeted well after our war. I know many fellow veterans who fought in Viet Nam who purposely never told anyone that they were even in Viet Nam simply to avoid a confrontation.

There were also several soldiers staying at the hotel who were spending the night before being shipped out to Iraq. I took the time to meet every one of them and thank them for their service. In fact, I happened to have some copies of my book, Wake Up... Live The Life You Love: Finding Life's Passion in my car so I autographed a copy for each of the soldiers and gave it to them so they would have something to read on their trip.

This year, I decided to write an article that wouldn't make anyone cry. I want to be as upbeat as I can about a day that means so much to me. Here's what I learned from my experiences this weekend: that next year, I'm going to wear a medal everyday when I go out in public. The only way you can change the world is to take action with an end result in mind.

I'll keep wearing my medals and I'll keep writing articles. In fact, since I'm personally mentoring 16 veterans this year for free and teaching them how to use their free veteran benefits to start a business selling products and services to the government, I'm going to encourage each one of them to write their own Memorial Day article for next year.

I hope that each of you took the time to pray for a fallen soldier today. If you didn't, stop what you are doing and say a prayer right now.

It has been an honor writing for you again this year,
Pat Kiggins, The Veteran's Mentor, http://www.patkiggins.com

Pat is a best-selling author, speaker, and is known online as The Veteran's Mentor. Pat is also an accomplished business executive, a proud "Vetrepreneur" and an even prouder parent of four outstanding children. If you would like to know more about Pat, please visit his web site at http://www.patkiggins.com

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