What is PTSD?
Explanation of PTSD
PTSD is short for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It occurs when a person experiences a traumatic event such as an assault or life threatening accident. It can happen if someone experiences an event or situation where they fear for their life or for someone else’s life. Interestingly, even imagining a trauma occurring to oneself in great detail or hearing about one that happened to someone else can create PTSD. According to the DSM-IV, if the event does not produce an intense emotional response, such as horror, fear or helplessness, then it is not considered traumatic and cannot cause PTSD.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence states that 5 in 100 men and 10 in 100 women will experience PTSD and up to 30% of people exposed to a stressful event or threatening situation with develop PTSD. So, not everyone exposed to trauma will be traumatized or develop PTSD which is fascinating. The reason for this is of great curiosity to researchers. Some believe that talking about the trauma after the event may assist with the processing and be the reason that certain people do not develop PTSD. However, there is also evidence that forcing someone to discuss a trauma can make things worse for them.
6 main clinical criteria:
1) Witnessing or experiencing an event, causing intense fear, helplessness or horror
2) Re-experiencing the event involuntarily
3) Avoiding stimuli associated with the event
4) Persistent symptoms of increased arousal
5) Experiencing the symptoms for more than 1 month
6) Significant distress or impairment to social, occupational or other important areas of functioning
Potential Symptoms:
1) Intrusion: re-living the event through flashbacks, nightmares or hallucinations. This could be triggered by smells, sights or situations that remind the person of the trauma.
2) Avoidance: closing down socially and emotionally in order to protect self from any triggering situations, withdrawing from friends, family and social life, unable to participate in certain activities.
3) Difficulty regulating emotions and behaviors: increased temper or anger, becoming more aggressive, violent, depressed or suicidal, developing phobias, urges to self harm, sleep disturbance and increased anxiety or panic attacks.
4) Addiction: if untreated, the person will often turn to drugs or alcohol in an attempt to manage the symptoms or self soothe.
Examples of PTSD
Many people struggle with PTSD for different reasons. Here are some examples.
1) A woman is in a terrifying car accident where she feared for her life. Now she has trouble driving and often experiences panic attacks when she tries to drive. She has flashbacks and nightmares about the event and even feels extremely scared when some one else is driving.
2) A man was robbed and beaten at gun point. Ever since the event he has trouble trusting anyone. He often isolates himself and is extremely on edge in crowds or around people he doesn’t know. Loud noises startle him and he becomes enraged if someone comes up behind him or taps him on the shoulder.
3) A young woman is raped during a night out and now finds it impossible to fall asleep due to the fear of her nightmares or someone breaking into her home and harming her while she is sleeping. She has tried to date but has extreme difficulty with intimacy and trust. She begins to drink in excess to black out just so she can get some rest.
4) A woman experiences numerous family deaths in a short amount of time in addition to her husband walking out on her unexpectedly. She loses her home in a fire and simultaneously suffers a serious injury. Now candles or fire are impossible for her to see, be around or discuss. She finds herself feeling extremely panicked when passing through her old neighborhood and has lost her job due to her inability to focus or handle any kind of criticism, even if it is constructive. She often finds herself replaying the events of that year over and over in her mind despite not wanting to think about it.
How Can We Heal from It?
Although people often try to treat trauma with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), hoping to ease flashbacks and nightmares by encouraging people to think differently or to become aware of the thoughts which might trigger a flashback, it may not be successful. The assumption built into the CBT approach is that thoughts come first before feelings but in reality trauma doesn’t work that way. Traumatic responses happen faster than the speed of thought. This makes sense because the “fight or flight” response must be quicker than thought to save us when our life is on the line. PTSD is a condition of the emotional mind, not the thinking mind so working with a hypnotherapist or a therapist with somatic experiencing expertise may be more useful.
In order to be de-traumatized one must alter the “pattern matching” that has occurred from the trauma. Pattern matching happens all the time in life. A trigger, or “pattern”, from the environment produces an instinctive response or “pattern match” within you. For example, if you are hungry and someone says “chocolate” you might salivate. This match-up results from learning in the past that chocolate represents a sweet and delicious food. Many pattern matches are useful or essential for survival but pattern matches are not always precise. Sometimes the wrong, or unhelpful response, can be triggered by a stimulus. This is called a “faulty pattern match” or “mismatch”. Unfortunately many faulty pattern matches, like phobias, fetishes and many PTSD symptoms, are actively detrimental to the person experiencing them. Imagine if you were abused by a man with a beard and began to fear all men with beards., This would be a detrimental pattern match. In a way, PTSD could be viewed as a phobia of a traumatic memory. Anything that reminds you or your senses of the the traumatic memory can trigger the panic response.
Desensitization to the “faulty pattern matches” that have occurred with PTSD via hypnosis can help. “The Rewind Technique” or the NLP “Time Line Therapy” technique may also be quite effective when done with an NLP Clinician or hypnotherapist. Somatic Experiencing can help the body release trapped tensions related to the trauma and to further process the trauma. SE may also allow the PTSD sufferer the opportunity to release some of what the mind and body wanted to do but was unable to do during the trauma which can be very cathartic and empowering. Many people with nightmares related to PTSD have been able to reduce the nightmares or memory of them with medications such as Prazosin, specifically created for this purpose. Lastly, EMDR, EFT/Tapping (Enhanced Freedom Technique) or Brain-spotting may also be helpful for healing. Brain-spotting is an offshoot of EMDR, created by David Grand, and initially used with Vietnam Veterans and 911 first responders with good success.
In summary, PTSD is a serious and often debilitating condition but there is help. Contact a local hypnotherapist or someone experienced in the therapies above to see if you might be a good candidate.