Repressing Trauma Not Harmful?

Anxiety Insights has the details of a Geisinger Health Center study that suggests certain people exposed to traumatic events may not suffer harm when they repress memories of those events.

“Going back to the days of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrists and mental health experts have suggested that repression of traumatic memories could lead to health problems,” Dr Boscarino said. “Yet we have found little evidence that repression had an adverse health impact on combat veterans exposed to psychological trauma many years later.”

One thing that leaps out in the article is the view that the use of exposure therapy – where people are asked to relive painful or traumatic events – may actually serve to trigger PTSD symptoms and psychological distress in those who had otherwise been doing just fine, thank you very much.

“While the dominant therapy model for PTSD should not be abandoned at this point, emerging research suggests that it might need to be seriously re-evaluated, at least for some PTSD patients,” Dr Boscarino said. “More research is clearly needed.”

Repressing traumatic memories may not be harmful to some , via Anxiety Insights

Meditation Helping Troubled Veterans

The Seattle Times details a new “mindfulness-based stress reduction” therapy for veterans experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Once thought to be applicable only to hippie freaks and David Carradine fans, meditation and mindfulness are rapidly becoming the go-to tool for therapists as they search for ways to assist soldiers and sailors who have been witness to unspeakable havoc and human destruction.

Mindfulness treatment asks participants to be aware of their thoughts and physical pain without judgment. It’s easy to stew over negative thoughts, which can cause more stress and frustration.

By simply pausing to pay attention, people can notice patterns in their thinking and put thoughts into perspective to improve their lives. Deep breathing, meditation and yoga help with this process.

Scientific studies have shown the technique can help patients with a range of issues, including anxiety, depression, chronic pain and rheumatoid arthritis. Kearney hopes to add PTSD to that list.

“I quickly found that people with PTSD sought out the class to find additional ways of dealing with this problem,” he said. “We’ve had many patients report to us the ability to be present in the actual moment helped their PTSD.”

Learning about the Buddhist concept of mindfulness and how meditation can be used to facilitate the mindful state was enormously beneficial to me when I began to grapple with my anxiety disorder. The easiest way to explain it is that the combination of mindfulness and meditation gives my fears a “time-out” where, for that period of time, I’m in charge of my thoughts and emotions. By forcing myself to use my mind in a reasoned, practical, intellectual manner, I’m effectively disabling the runaway thought processes that often lead to the anxiety reactions and behaviors.

I’ve never had much use for the formalized exercises or chanting that often accompany meditation, but repeating key phrases and/or vocalizing my emotional state while clearing my brain of extraneous thoughts has evolved through practice and is now an essential part of my coping mechanism toolbox.

Kudos to the VA Puget Sound Health Care System for their innovative approach to helping our vets.

Seattle hospital teaches meditation to troubled vets

East Meets West for PTSD Treatment

Anxiety Insights gives us a look at an interesting challenge faced at Boston Medical Center, where they needed to treat a large number of refugees monks from Tibet who were suffering from PTSD caused by the ongoing religious persecution there.

Doctors realized that there were significant differences in the approaches taken by eastern and western cultures, especially in how they viewed medicine, so the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights developed an innovative treatment program that leveraged and integrated both approaches.

Of particular interest was the participatory aspect of the treatment regimen, where the monks were able to actively engage in their treatment, rather than the typical structured approach, where the patient simply follows along where the therapist leads. This helped to ensure that any therapy involved did not conflict with religious or spiritual beliefs, which provided for a much smoother and hopefully more effective outcome.

Having used Buddhist learning and practice to compliment my own therapy, I can affirm that combining traditional and non-traditional techniques can certainly benefit the patient, and my own experience of integrating eastern and western methods leads me to be an enthusiastic supporter of this approach.

East meets west: Integrating cross-cultural treatments for PTSD

Panic Attacks & PTSD

Researchers at Geisinger Health System have determined that, contrary to recent opinions in psychology circles, having a panic attack during a traumatic event does not increase a person’s risk for subsequently developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Rather, researchers found that prior psychological history, such as depression, and the availability of an emotional support network are better leading indicators of PTSD susceptibilty.

From the research:

“Clinicians should look at other signs of mental-health stress such as not sleeping, recently experiencing stressful life events and withdrawing from social interactions,” Boscarino said. “Our study suggests that many factors contribute to post-traumatic stress disorder-not just panic attacks during the event.”

What was interesting to me was the research population that was used – people involved with the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks.

About 10% of Americans suffer panic attacks each year, and the ratio increases among those who have experienced traumatic events. Like many people who have a history of panic attacks, I also have a dandy background of trauma – kidnapped sister, dead sister, parental abandonment, and assorted physical and emotional abuse. So the fact that I ended up with trauma-induced anxiety as an adult is hardly a surprise.

It’s all part of the immense jigsaw puzzle of the mind.

Panic attacks during traumatic events not a harbinger of PTSD