How Family and Close Friends Can Help Trauma Survivors How do you express your support to someone who is reeling from a traumatic experience? There are things you can do for the other person as well as for yourself.
1. If your ...
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Linked to Earlier Poor Health Rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are higher among military personnel who had mental or physical health problems before combat, a recent study has found.
Cynthia LeardMann and colleagues at the Naval Health Research Center in ...
Conquering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the most difficult conditions for anyone to bear. Many who encounter life-threatening events or situations that threaten physical or emotional safety become burdened by a variety of intense ...
Ricochet: The Truth About PTSD Some of you may have read the article "Ricochet: My shot made Joseph Dwyer famous. Did it also help lead to his death?"
If you haven't, you might want to. It's about this young ...
We Shouldn’t Need a Day of Our Own Everybody in the United States is terribly aware the second Sunday in May is Mother's Day -- the floral and greeting card industries won’t let you forget it. Mother's Day is big business. (Whether people ...
Yoga for Treatment of Anxiety and Depression Can yoga help in the treatment of anxiety and depression?
Since the 1970s, meditation and other stress-reduction techniques have been studied as possible treatments for depression and anxiety. One such practice, yoga, has received less attention ...
What is Exposure Therapy? Exposure therapy is a specific type of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy technique that is often used in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobias.
In PTSD, exposure therapy is intended to help the patient face and ...
The Consequences of Verbally Abusive Athletic Coaches My 10-year-old son was bullied recently. He was told that he was an “embarrassment.” He was told to “shut up.” He was yelled at and scolded in a tone of voice tinged with disgust and ...
Coping with Flashbacks Flashbacks are memories of past traumas. They may take the form of pictures, sounds, smells, body sensations, feelings, or the lack of them (numbness).
Many times there is no actual ...
What is a Trigger? A trigger is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of her/his original trauma.
Triggers are very personal; different things trigger different people. ...
My Battle with Childhood Sexual Abuse My first memory of emotional abuse was when I was three years old. Mum left me with the next door neighbour who was the local flasher. He didn't think anything of showing himself to ...
Overcoming Childhood Abuse and Neglect My mother left when I was 3. I bounced around without a home — lived with my grandparents, sometimes my father, sometimes aunts and uncles. I suffered horrendous abuse. Emotional, physical, sexual… sometimes I think ...
A Brief Overview of Traumatic Stress People who experience or witness horrible events such as school shootings, combat, rape, torture, natural disasters, accidents or other things in which their physical safety and life -- or the safety and life of others ...
PTSD and Community Violence Community violence can take many forms: riots, sniper attacks, gang wars and drive-by shootings, and workplace assaults. On a larger scale, terrorist attacks, torture, bombings, war, ethnic cleansing, and widespread sexual, physical and emotional abuse ...
PTSD and Older Veterans From as long ago as Homer's ancient story of the battle between the Trojans and the Greeks, and the times of the Bible and Shakespeare, military personnel have been confronted by the trauma of war. ...
Types of PTSD There are five main types of post-traumatic stress disorder: normal stress response, acute stress disorder, uncomplicated PTSD, comorbid PTSD and complex PTSD.
Normal Stress Response
The normal stress response occurs when healthy adults who have been ...
Psychotherapy Treatment for PTSD Psychotherapy is an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and survivors of trauma. There are a variety of psychotherapies available, but they all share a number of common attributes:
Therapy always is individualized to meet ...
PTSD and Relationships Trauma survivors with PTSD often experience problems in their intimate and family relationships or close friendships. PTSD involves symptoms that interfere with trust, emotional closeness, communication, responsible assertiveness, and effective problem solving:
Loss of interest in ...
An Overview of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized as an anxiety problem that people sometimes experience after witnessing or being involved with a traumatic event, such as a fire, a war, an accident or the like. ...
Facts about PTSD General Adult Population
The following information on PTSD in the general adult population is taken from the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) report.
The estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans is 7.8 percent, with women ...
PTSD and Children Children often are exposed to trauma as a result of the following kinds of events:
physical or sexual assault or abuse
family and community violence
experiencing or witnessing severe accidents
natural or technological disasters
life-threatening ...
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a relatively new clinical treatment that has been scientifically evaluated primarily with trauma survivors.
EMDR's originator, Dr. Francine Shapiro, describes the procedure in detail in a recent book, ...
Understanding Anxiety Disorders, Part 2 Anxiety disorders come in many varieties. Descriptions of some of the most common disorders follow:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: GAD is characterized by persistent anxiety unrelated to a specific event. People suffering from GAD cannot help worrying ...
