In the last several years we have heard a lot about PTSD in regard to veterans returning from Iraq and Afganistan. I am not qualified to treat or diagnose it, but I do know someone who had it and found an effective treatment.
This morning I was listening to a podcast and they talked about a treatment that is widely used at VA hospitals. This reporter, who had PTSD, said that they put him together with a good, caring therapist and she had him talk about the events, in detail, that caused his PTSD. He had to tell the stories dozens of times in the hope that eventually they would lose their charge and he would get to the point where telling each story would feel like it happened to someone else. For this reporter, the multiple times of retelling the stories did not provide relief and the process made his body repeatedly go through a stress response. The treatment did did not resolve his PTSD.
I was disappointed to realize that EMDR and Tapping (EFT) were not mentioned as possible remedies. This is because I have a friend went to a therapist who knew how to do EMDR and in just a few sessions, he felt much better. He did not have to spend hours of time talking about the incidents over and over and getting stressed out many times in the process. The treatment worked very efficiently in less than six sessions.
While I don’t know anyone personally who has used Tapping to treat PTSD, I have heard that it is often very effective. It is easy to learn and does not require a lot of training like EMDR. A person can do it with a therapist, alone or with a friend. I have read that it was used to relieve the suffering of families who lost children in the Newtown, CT shootings.
I wrote this article today to help spread the word on possible remedies for a condition that is seriously affecting the lives of millions of people (not just veterans) all over the world. Below are a couple of links that might be of interest.
http://www.emdrhap.org/content/what-is-emdr/
Health Idealist 