PTSD Impairs Detection of Emotional Cues

This article has significant relevance for first responders, especially police.  Police are often a traumatized population.  In the last few years they have made many mistakes interpreting motives and danger levels of people they are responding to.  Here in Portland several mentally ill or traumatized individuals have been shot, some fatally, because officer misread cues about the suspects' danger levels.  Now we can see that first responders themselves may become impaired. This new information highlights a need for increased training and psychological awareness on the part of police and others.

Nature, the best healer!

I could say it's the Vitamin D from the summer sun, or the slower pace, or even the sesquiterpenes from the pine trees that are the source of so much healing in Nature. But I'd be wrong.  Nature is just pure magic when it comes to healing from PTSD and other stress related ailments. Swimming in rivers and lakes of pure prana; biking over luscious terrain, or just sitting around a campfire in a fire induced trance, find a way to bring nature into your life on a regular basis. Even just one day will bring noticeable benefits! (credits to daughter, Maya, for this beautiful picture)

187,133 Veterans Have Been Diagnosed with PTSD

POLL UP!

Hi Friends,

I've just put up this poll about ways people handle extreme stress or PTSD.  When you are triggered, where do you go for relief? What's most reliable for you?  You can check more than one answer.  If your favorite treatment is not on the list, please share it for others in the comments section below!  I look forward to seeing your responses!

Love and Blessings, Sue

Helane' Wahbeh, ND

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Helane' Wabeh for lunch yesterday.  Helane' (pronounced Helen-ay) is a doctor of naturopathic medicine here in the Northwest.  She is on faculty at the National College of Naturopathic medicine and is conducting research at Oregon Health Sciences University on the effects of mindfulness meditation on people with PTSD.  Like myself, Helane has become convinced that healing from PTSD is a multidimensional process that needs to incorporate a spiritual component.  

In her private practice Helane' uses a process called "drainage" to work homeopathically with stress related disorder, a treatment that was pioneered by Dickson Thom, ND.

She has a Mindfulness Meditation CD available for purchase at $20.00.

As Helane's research proceeds, I will keep you up to date!

Your Brain on PTSD

We all have those days!  When your traumatized brain is not quite up to life, take some time for restoration and recuperation. You may not need to announce to your boss you are taking a mental health day, but take one anyway!  Anything you can do to calm down your mind and relax your body will help you cope and function better. Stay tuned for more blog posts on how to do just that!

The Promise of Complementary Therapies for PTSD

I was happy to see that our cousins across the ocean are so open to working with traumatic stress in a variety of ways.  I had the pleasure of meeting with David Marteau, the head of substance abuse treatment for offenders in London, England.  He felt that the complementary therapies "showed real promise" for helping with traumatized people.

Here at home the military is increasingly turning to alternative therapies for PTSD in their personnel.  The great thing about the American military is that they are intensely pragmatic and great at following protocol. Treatments that have been researched by the Pentagon and/or used to date include:  acupuncture, aromatherapy (yes, really), yoga, reiki massage, relaxation techniques, mindfulness.  The Ft. Bliss Restoration and Resilience Center has an integrative model that has treated dozens of officers with multidimensional holistic treatments.  They went from a 10 percent redeployment rate of officers with PTSD to a redeployment rate of over 60 percent for those who completed the program!  Complementary therapies work!

In London

Well, today is the big day.  Today I tell people in the House of Commons why a multidimensional program of healing is necessary for those women coming out of prison.  Few people consider it, but people in prison have suffered lives of excessive trauma.  Studies are showing that 70-90% of the women in prison have suffered sexual abuse.  One study from University of Pennsylvania demonstrated that of 120 violent inmates, over 90% had pathological neurologic findings. When researchers looked at what this meant, they found that a substantial number of these prisoners had been hit so hard that they had lost consciousness.  In other words there was abuse related brain damage.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a big topic among those treating soldiers returning from war.  We are finding many soldiers with TBI and it often co-occurs with PTSD.  What we have not yet considered is that so many in prison also have a history of TBI.

It is human nature to blame, to make some people good and others evil.  Yet to progress in our civilization and to fix what ails us (prison overcrowding, economic pitfalls, healthcare burdens) we need to address what truly ails our citizens.  We must find a way to look more deeply at PTSD, TBI and the ways they manifest in people in both sympathetic and unsympathetic ways.

Countdown!

After having passed the hurdles of agents, publishers, initial editing, rewrites and title, The Trauma Toolkit: Healing PTSD From the Inside Out is in line editing, the final stage of editing where all i's are dotted and t's crossed.  Very exciting. It's been a long journey.

Ever since I took my very first job in mental health, working with severely autistic young children, I have been working with traumatized populations: staff and clients alike!  Traumatic stress is the unifying field that links all fields of mental health.  Some people are disturbed because they are traumatized.  Some people are traumatized because they are disturbed.  And all human services staff become traumatized at some point in their career.  (I actually left the field twice! But I couldn't stay away.)  But many people with traumatic stress appear to be completely "normal", whatever that is.  A friend of mine says that normal people are those we don't know very well.

Anyway, after 35 years in the field, 20 years as a therapist and 20 years of my own healing, the time was ripe to put all the tools I have learned out in the world for all to know. And so, the book.

A funny thing happened on the way to publishing.  A reader friend of mine in England recently launched a proposal for rehabilitative group homes for women coming out of prison.  She decided to use Trauma Toolkit as her model.  One thing led to another and lo and behold I am heading to London this weekend to make the case for restorative justice and more rehabilitative models for prisoners, the vast majority of whom have been traumatized long before they were sent to prison.  England has long been a leader in human rights (since at least the 1600's) so I'm hoping they are ready to embrace their role again as a progressive force in moving humanity forward.  In a few short days I will make my case to a group of leaders at the House of Commons.  

With recent research and a burgeoning understanding of the cause of social ills and the technology to remedy them, imagine the possibilities!  You know that song:  I'd like to teach the world to sing.... well, I'd like to teach the world to heal from traumatic stress! Wish me luck.

Blessings and thanks for stopping by, Sue